LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No.-_-^___ 

Shelf___.H_6 
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



HENRY FIELDING 

A MEMOIR 



Hemy Fielding. 



Henry Fielding 

A MEMOIR 
BY 

AUSTIN DOBSON 



REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

Publishers 



t>o;ii5o 



"^Vv. t-nt.^ hut WED 

OCT 24 1900 

«.a.J)r.WAr')rr.V.. 
9«0fc« DIVISION, 

r; ov 21 i:;Ou 



Copyright, 1900 

by 

DoDD, Mead & Company 



PREFACE 

TT was the doctrine of Voltaire that an author 
^ should continue to correct his writings as long 
as possible. In the present reprint of my Memoir 
of Henry -Fielding, I have endeavoured to obey 
this teaching. I have gone through the book 
once more, verifying its statements anew, and 
adding, either in the text or as notes, those sparse 
fragments of fresh information which have come 
to my knowledge since it was first prepared. I 
trust that it now represents, accurately, and in 
compact form, the bulk of what is known to be 
trustworthy concerning the great man whom Scott 
called the *' Father of the English Novel." 

Austin Dobson. 
Ealing, ytme, igoo. 



PREFATORY NOTE 

TO THE FIRST EDITION OF 1883 

FROM a critical point of view, the works of 
Fielding have received abundant examina- 
tion at the hands of a long line of distinguished 
writers. Of these, the latest is by no means the 
least ; and as Mr. Leslie Stephen's brilliant stud- 
ies, in the recent ddition de luxe ^ and the Corn- 
hill Maga^ine^ are now in every one's hands, it is 
perhaps no more than a wise discretion which has 
prompted me to confine my attention more strictly 
to the purely biographical side of the subject. In 
the present memoir, therefore, I have made it my 
duty, primarily, to verify such scattered anecdotes 
respecting Fielding as have come down to us ; to 
correct — I hope not obtrusively — a few misstate- 
ments which have crept into previous accounts ; 
and to add such supplementary details as I have 
been able to discover for myself. 

In this task I have made use of the following 
authorities : 

1 This was written in 1883.— P. T. O. 



viii Prefatory Note 

I. Arthur Murphy's Essay on the Life and 
Genius of Henry Fielding, Esq. This was pre- 
fixed to the first collected edition of Fielding's 
works published by Andrew Millar in April, 1762 ; 
and it continued for a long time to be the recog- 
nised authority for Fielding's life. It is possible 
that it fairly reproduces his personality, as pre- 
sented by contemporary tradition ; but it is mis- 
leading in its facts, and needlessly diffuse. Un- 
der pretence of respecting *' the Manes of the 
dead," the writer seems to have found it pleas- 
anter to fill his space with vagrant discussions on 
the *' Middle Comedy of the Greeks" and the 
machinery of the Rape of the Lock, than to make 
the requisite biographical inquiries. This is the 
more to be deplored, because, in 1762, Fielding's 
widow, brother, and sister, as well as his friend 
Lyttelton, were still alive, and trustworthy infor- 
mation should have been procurable. 

II. William Watson's Life of Henry Fielding, 
Esq. This is usually to be found prefixed to a 
selection of Fielding's works issued at Edinburgh. 
It also appeared as a volume in 1807, although 
there is no copy of it in this form at the British 
Museum. It carries Murphy a little farther, and 
corrects him in some instances. But its author 
had clearly never even seen the Miscellanies of 
1743, with their valuable Preface, for he speaks 



Prefatory Note ix 

of them as one volume, and in apparent ignorance 
of their contents. 

III. Sir Walter Scott's biographical sketch for 
Ballantyne's Novelist's Library. This was pub- 
lished in 182 1 ; and is now included in the writ- 
er's Miscellaneous Prose Works. Sir Walter made 
no pretence to original research, and even spoke 
slightingly of this particular effort ; but it has all 
the charm of his practised and genial pen. 

IV. Roscoe's Memoir, compiled for the one- 
volume edition of Fielding, published by Wash- 
bourne and others in 1840. 

V. Thackeray's well-known lecture, in the Eng- 
lish Humourists of the Eighteenth Century^ 1853. 

VI. The Life of Henry Fielding ; with Notices 
of his Writings, his Times, and his Contempora- 
ries. By Frederick Lawrence. 1855. This is 
an exceedingly painstaking book ; and constitutes 
the first serious attempt at a biography. Its chief 
defect — as pointed out at the time of its appear- 
ance — is an ill-judged emulation of Forster's 
Goldsmith, The author attempted to make Field- 
ing a literary centre, which is impossible ; and 
the attempt has involved him in needless digres- 
sions. He is also not always careful to give 
chapter and verse for his statements. 

VII. Thomas Keightley's papers On the Life 
and Writings of Henry Fielding in Eraser's Mag- 



X Prefatory Note 

a'{ine for January and February, 1859. These, 
prompted by Mr. Lawrence's book, are most 
valuable, if only for the author's frank distrust of 
his predecessors. They are the work of an en- 
thusiast, and a very conscientious examiner. If, 
as reported, Mr. Keightley himself meditated a 
life of Fielding, it is much to be regretted that 
he never carried out his intentions.^ 

Upon the two works last mentioned, I have 
chiefly relied in the preparation of his study. I 
have freely availed myself of the material that 
both authors collected, verifying it always, and 
extending it wherever I could. Of my other 
sources of information — pamphlets, reviews, 
memoirs, and newspapers of the day — the list 
would be too long ; and sufficient references to 
them are generally given in the body of the text. 
I will only add that I think there is scarcely a 
quotation of importance in these pages which has 
not been compared with the original ; and, ex- 
cept where otherwise stated, all extracts from 
Fielding himself are taken from the first editions. 

At this distance of time, new facts respect- 
ing a man of whom so little has been recorded, 
require to be announced with considerable cau- 

> See Appendix I., which shows that Mr. Keightley had 
made some progress in this direction before he died in 1872. 
—P. T. O. 



Prefatory Note xi 

tion. Some definite additions to Fielding lore I 
have, however, been enabled to make. Thanks 
to the late Colonel J. L. Chester, who was en- 
gaged, only a few weeks before his death, in 
friendly investigations on my behalf, I am able to 
give, for the first time, the date and place of 
Fielding's second marriage, and the baptismal 
dates of all the children by that marriage, except 
the eldest. I am also able to fix a true period of 
his love-affair with Miss Sarah Andrew. From 
the original assignment at South Kensington I 
have ascertained the exact sum paid by Millar for 
Joseph Andrews ; and in chapter v. will be found 
a series of extracts from a very interesting cor- 
respondence, which does not appear to have been 
hitherto published, between Aaron Hill, his 
daughters, and Richardson respecting Tom 
Jones. Although I cannot claim credit for the 
discovery, I believe the present is also the first 
biography of Fielding which entirely discredits 
the unlikely story of his having been a stroller at 
Bartholomew Fair ; and I may also, I think, 
claim to have thrown some additional light on 
Fielding's relations with the Cibbers, seeing that 
the last critical essay upon the author of the 
Apology which I have met with, contains no ref- 
erence to Fielding at all. For such minor nov- 
elties as the passage from the Universal Spectator 



xii Prefatory Note 

at p. 36, and the account of the projected trans- 
lation of Lucian at p. 226, etc., the reader is re- 
ferred to the book itself, where these, and other 
waifs and strays, are duly indicated. If, in my 
endeavour to secure what is freshest, I have at 
the same time neglected a few stereotyped quota- 
tions, which have hitherto seemed indispensable 
in writing of Fielding, I trust I may be forgiven. 

Brief as it is, the book has not been without 
its obligations. To Mr. R. F. Sketchley, Keeper 
of the Dyce and Forster Collections at South 
Kensington, I am indebted for reference to the 
Hill correspondence, and for other kindly offices ; 
to Mr. Frederick Locker for permission to col- 
late Fielding's last letter with the original in his 
possession. My thanks are also due to Mr. R. 
Arthur Kinglake, J. P., of Taunton ; to the Rev. 
Edward Hale of Eton College, the Rev. G. C. 
Green of Modbury, Devon, the Rev. W. S. 
Shaw of Twerton-on-Avon, and Mr. Richard 
Garnett of the British Museum. Without some 
expression of gratitude to the last mentioned, it 
would indeed be almost impossible to conclude 
any modern preface of this kind. If I have 
omitted the names of others who have been good 
enough to assist me, I must ask them to accept 
my acknowledgments although they are not spe- 
cifically expressed. A. D. 

Ealing, March^ 1883. 



Prefatory Note xiii 

PREFATORY NOTE 

TO THE SECOND EDITION OF 1 889 

I have taken advantage of the present issue to 
add, in the form of Appendices, some supple- 
mentary particulars which have come to my 
knowledge since the book was first published. 
The most material of these is the curious confir- 
mation and extension of Fielding's love affair 
with Sarah Andrew. Besides these additions, a 
few necessary rectifications have been made in the 
text. A. D. 

Ealing, April, 1889. 



CHAPTER I 



PAGE 



Ancestry and birth (20 April, 1707); the Fielding fam- 
ily ; education ; life at Eton ; episode of Sarah 
Andrew; at Leyden; in London; the stage of 
1728; Love in Several Masques ^ 1728; minor 
poems, The Temple Beau, 1730 ; The Author's 
Farce f 1730 ; more comedies and farces; Tom 
Thumb, 1730; The Mock Doctor, \*JZ'2.\ The Miser ^ 
1733, town life I 

CHAPTER H 

Fielding and Timothy Fielding ; The Intriguing Cham- 
bermaid, 1734 ; The Author^ s Farce revived, 1734 ; 
Theophilus Gibber ; Don Quixote in England, 
1734; a farce and a comedy; marriage, 1735 (?); 
Miss Charlotte Cradock ; love-poems ; life at East 
Stour ; the Great Mogul's Gompany ; Pasquin, 
1736 ; plot, incidents and extracts ; The Historical 
Register, 1737; the Licensing Act; Fielding as a 
playwright 38 

CHAPTER HI 

Becomes a student of the Middle Temple, i November, 
1737; law and letters; the Champion, 1739-40 ; 
its themes ; attack in Gibber's Apology ; reply 



xvi Contents 

PAGE 

thereto; Tryal of Colley Cibber^ Comedian; Field- 
ing and Gibber; called to the Bar, 20 June, 1740 ; 
minor writings ; travels Western Circuit ; Richard- 
son's Pamela; Joseph Andrews, February, 1742; 
Parson Abraham Adams ; other personages of the 
book ; details and descriptions ; personal portrai- 
ture; plan of novel; Richardson and Gray; as- 
signment to Millar 81 

CHAPTER IV 

Vindication of the Duchess of Marlborough, March, 
1742; Miss Lucy in Town, May; Plutus, the God 
of Riches, May ; Pope and Fielding ; Garrick and 
The Wedding Day ; Macklin's prologue ; the Mis- 
cellanies, April, 1743; Essays, "On Conversa- 
tion ; " " On the Characters of Men ; " " A Journey 
from this World to the Next ; " " Jonathan Wild ; " 
domestic history, and death of Mrs. Fielding, 
1743 (?) ; Lady Louisa Stuart's account; Mr. 
Keightley's comments ; prefaces to David Simple 
and Familiar Letters; the True Patriot, 1745, 
and the Jacobite's Journal, 1747 ; tribute to Rich- 
ardson; second marriage, 27 November, 1747; 
Justice of Peace for Westminster and Middlesex, 
December, 1748 121 

CHAPTER V 

Fielding and Joseph Warton ; making of the master- 
piece ; means of existence ; Tom Jones published, 
28 February, 1749; a "New Province of Writ- 



Contents xvii 

PAGE 

ingj" construction of the plot; the characters; 
Squire Western ; other persons of the drama ; Tom 
Jones himself; the author's humour, irony, human- 
ity ; reception of the book ; Richardson and Aaron 
Hill's daughters ; translators and illustrators ; adap- 
tations for the stage i6i 

CHAPTER VI 

A visit to Justice Fielding ; chairman of Quarter Ses- 
sions, 12 May, 1749; charge to the Westminster 
Grand Jury, 29 June ; case of Bosavern Penlez, 
July ; Enquiry iyito the Causes of the late Increase 
of Robbers^ January, 175 1 ; the Glastonbury waters ; 
publication of Amelia^ 19 December; its charac- 
teristics ; its characters and heroine ; her portrait ; 
the author's apology for his book ; Richardson on 
Fielding; the Covent Garden Journal, 1752; pro- 
posals for translating Lucian; Examples of the 
Interposition of Providence ^ April, 1752; Proposal 
for the Poor, January, 1753; Case of Elizabeth 
Canning-f March 200 

CHAPTER VII 

The beginning of the end; poor law projects; Journal 
of a Voyage to Lisbon ; scheme for the prevention 
of robberies, etc.; failing health; magisterial 
duties; sets out for Lisbon, 26 June, 1754; inci- 
dents of journey; a " riding surveyor;" letter to 
John Fielding ; Captain Richard Veal and others ; 



xviii Contents 

PAGE 

reaches Lisbon, 14 August; dies there, 8 October; 
his tomb and epitaph ; his portrait ; his character ; 
his work 233 

Postscript 267 

Appendix No. I : Fielding and Sarah Andrew .... 277 

Appendix No. II : Fielding and Mrs. Hussey .... 286 

Appendix No. Ill: Fielding's will 291 

Appendix No. IV: Extracts from ^ Journal of a Voy- 
age to Lisbon 293 

Index 307 



HENRY FIELDING 

A MEMOIR 



CHAPTER I 

Ancestry and birth (20 April, 1707); the Fielding family; 
education; life at Eton; episode of Sarah Andrew; at 
Ley den; in London; the stage of 1728; Love in Several 
Masques, 1728; minor poems, The Temple Beau, 1730; 
The Author's Farce, 17 30; more comedies and farces; 
Tom Thumb, 1730 ; The Mock Doctor, 1732; The Miser, 
1733, town life. 

T IKE his contemporary Smollett, Henry 
^ Fielding came of an ancient family, and 
might, in his Horatian moods, have traced his 
origin to Inachus. The lineage of the house of 
Denbigh — as given in Burke — fully justifies the 
splendid, if now discredited, eulogy of Gibbon.^ 

1 From the edition of Gibbon's Aiitobiographies, published 
by Murray in 1896, it seems that this famous appreciation 
was only a fragment, not inserted in any of the different 
versions. It runs as follows : " Our immortal Fielding 
was of a younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who 

I 



2 Henry Fielding 

But even without going back to that first 
Geoffrey of Hapsburgh, who, according to the 
time-honoured story, came to England, temp, 
Henry III., and assumed the name of Fieldeng, 
or Filding, '*from his father's pretensions to the 
dominions of Lauffenbourg and Rinfilding'' the 
future novelist could boast a long line of illustri- 
ous ancestors. There was a Sir William Feild- 
ing killed at Tewkesbury, and a Sir Everard who 
had commanded at Stoke. Another Sir William, 
a staunch Royalist, was created Earl of Denbigh, 

draw their origin from the counts of Hapsburgh, the lineal 
descendants of Ethico in the Seventh Century, Duke of 
Alsace. Far different have been the fortunes of the Eng- 
lish and German divisions of the family of Hapsburgh. 
The former, the knights and sheriffs of Leicestershire, have 
slowly risen to the dignity of a peerage ; the latter, the 
Emperors of Germany and Kings of Spain, have threatened 
the liberty of the Old and invaded the treasures of the New 
World. The successors of Charles the Fifth may disdain 
their humble brethren of England: but the Romance of 
Tom Jones, that exquisite picture of human manners, will 
outlive the palace of the Escurial and the Imperial Eagle 
of the house of Austria." (p. 419.) 

The illustrious author of the Decline and Fall, were he 
still alive, would probably be disconcerted to learn that 
modern genealogists are by no means satisfied as to the re- 
lations of the Denbighs and Hapsburghs. (See The Gene- 
alogist, New Series, for April, 1894, where this question is 
exhaustively examined by Mr. J. H. Round.) 



A Memoir 3 

and died in fighting King Charles's battles. Of 
his two sons, the elder, Basil, who succeeded to 
the title, was a Parliamentarian, and had served 
at Edgehill under Essex. George, his second 
son, was raised to the peerage of Ireland as Vis- 
count Callan, with succession to the earldom of 
Desmond ; and from this, the younger branch of 
the Denbigh family, Henry Fielding directly de- 
scended. The Earl of Desmond's fifth son, 
John, entered the Church, becoming Canon of 
Salisbury and Chaplain to William III. By his 
wife Bridget, daughter of Scipio Cockain, Esq., 
of Somerset, he had three sons and three daugh- 
ters. Edmund, the third son, was a soldier, who 
fought with distinction under Marlborough. 
When about the age of thirty, he married Sarah, 
daughter of Sir Henry Gould, Knt., of Sharp- 
ham Park, near Glastonbury, in Somerset, and 
one of the Judges of the King's Bench. These 
last were the parents of the novelist, who was 
born at Sharpham Park on the 22d of April, 1707. 
One of Dr. John Fielding's nieces, it may here 
be added, married the first Duke of Kingston, 
becoming the mother of Lady Mary Pierrepont, 
afterwards Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who 
was thus Henry Fielding's second cousin. She 
had, however, been born in 1689, and was conse- 
quently some years his senior. 



4 Henry Fielding 

According to a pedigree given in Nichols 
(History and Antiquities of the County of Lei- 
cester), Edmund Fielding was only a lieutenant 
when he married ; and it is even not improbable 
(as Mr. Keightley conjectures from the nearly 
secret union of Lieutenant Booth and Amelia in 
the later novel) that the match may have been a 
stolen one. At all events, the bride continued to 
reside at her father's house ; and the fact that 
Sir Henry Gould, by his will made in March, 
1706, left his daughter ;2^3,ooo, which was to be 
invested *' in the purchase either of a Church or 
CoUedge lease, or of lands of Inheritance/' for 
her sole use, her husband having '* nothing to 
doe with it/' would seem (as Mr. Keightley sug- 
gests) to indicate a distrust of his military, and 
possibly impecunious, son-in-law. This money, 
it is also important to remember, was to come to 
her children at her death. Sir Henry Gould did 
not long survive the making of his will, and died 
in March, 1710.^ The Fieldings must then have 
removed to a small house at East Stour (now 
Stower), in Dorsetshire, where Sarah Fielding 

1 Mr. Keightley, who seems to have seen the will, dates 
it — doubtless by a slip of the pen — May, 1708. Reference 
to the original, however, now at Somerset House, shows 
the correct date to be March 8, 1706, before which time the 
marriage of Fielding's parents must therefore be placed. 



A Memoir 5 

was born in the following November. It may 
be that this property was purchased with Mrs. 
Fielding's money ; but information is wanting 
upon the subject. At East Stour, according to 
the extracts from the parish register given in 
Hutchins's Hisiory of Dorset^ four children were 
born, — namiCly, Sarah, above mentioned, after- 
wards the authoress of David Simple^ Anne, 
Beatrice, and another son, Edmund. Edmund, 
says Arthur Murphy, ''was an officer in the 
marine service," and (adds Mr. Lawrence) 
''died young." ^ Anne died at East Stour in 
August, 1716. Of Beatrice nothing further is 
known. These would appear to have been all 
the children of Edmund Fielding by his first 
wife, although, as Sarah Fielding is styled on 
her monument at* Bath the second daughter of 
General Fielding, it is not impossible that another 
daughter may have been born at Sharpham 
Park. 

At East Stour the Fieldings certainly resided 
until April, 1718, when Mrs. Fielding died, leav- 
ing her elder son a boy of not quite eleven years 

1 He was alive in 1743, for his name appears in a list of 
Colonel James Cochran's Regiment of Marines printed at 
p. 25 of The Whitefoord Papers, 1898. Fielding refers to 
him in The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, 1755, P* ^^^ ^^ 
first issue. 



6 Henry Fielding 

of age. How much longer the family remained 
there is unrecorded ; but it is clear that a great 
part of Henry Fielding's childhood must have 
been spent by the ** pleasant Banks of sweetly- 
winding Stour " which passes through it, and to 
which he subsequently refers in Tom Jones, His 
education during this time was confided to a cer- 
tain Mr. Oliver, whom Lawrence designates the 
** family chaplain.'' Keightley supposes that he 
was the curate of East Stour ; but Hutchins, a 
better authority than either, says that he was the 
clergyman of Motcombe, a neighbouring village. 
Of this gentleman, according to Murphy, Parson 
Trulliber in Joseph Andrews is a '^ very humorous 
and striking portrait." It is certainly more hu- 
morous than complimentary. 

From Mr. Oliver's fosterin^g care — and the 
result shows that, whatever may have been the 
pig-dealing propensities of Parson Trulliber, it 
was not entirely profitless — Fielding was trans- 
ferred to Eton. When this took place is not 
known ; but at that time boys entered the school 
much earlier than they do now, and it was prob- 
ably not long after his mother's death. The 
Eton boys were then, as at present, divided into 
collegers and oppidans. There are no registers 
of oppidans before the end of the last century ; 
but the Provost of Eton has been good enough 



A Memoir 7 

to search the college lists from 171 5 to 1735, ^"^ 
there is no record of any Henry Fielding, nor 
indeed of any Fielding at all. It may therefore 
be concluded that he was an oppidan. No par- 
ticulars of his stay at Eton have come down to 
us ; but it is to be presumed Murphy's statement 
that, '* when he left the place, he was said to be 
uncommonly versed in the Greek authors, and an 
early master of the Latin classics," is not made 
without foundation.^ We have also his own au- 
thority (in Tom Jones) for supposing that he oc- 
casionally, if not frequently, sacrificed ^' with 
true Spartan devotion "at the ^* birchen Altar," 
of which a representation is to be found in Sir 
Maxwell Lyte's history of the College.^ And it 
may fairly be inferred that he took part in the 
different sports and pastimes of the day, such as 
Conquering Lobs, Steal baggage. Chuck, Stare- 
caps, and so forth. Nor does it need any strong 
effort of imagination to conclude that he bathed 
in ** Sandy hole " or '' Cuckow ware," attended 
the cock-fights in Bedford's Yard and the bull- 
baiting in Bachelor's Acre, drank mild punch at 

1 Fielding's own words in the verses to Walpole some 
years later scarcely go so far : 

" Tuscan and French are in my Head ; 
Latin I write, and Greek I — read." 
^ History of Eton College, 1875, P* 374* 



8 Henry Fielding 

the ^^Christopher/' and, no doubt, was occa- 
sionally brought back by Jack Cutler, *^ Pursui- 
vant of Runaways," to make his explanations to 
Dr. Bland the Head-Master, or Francis Goode 
the Usher. Among his school-fellows were 
some who subsequently attained to high dignities 
in the State, and still remained his friends. Fore- 
most of these was George Lyttelton, later the 
statesman and orator, who had already com- 
menced poet as an Eton boy with his *' Soliloquy 
of a Beauty in the Country.'' Another was the 
future Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, the wit and 
squib-writer, then known as Charles Hanbury 
only. A third was Thomas Winnington, for 
whom, in after years. Fielding fought hard with 
brain and pen when Tory scribblers assailed his 
memory. Of those who must be regarded as 
contemporaries merely, were William Pitt, the 
* ' Great Commoner," and yet greater Earl of Chat- 
ham ; Henry Fox, Lord Holland; and Charles 
Pratt, Earl Camden. Gilbert West, the transla- 
tor of Pindar, may also have been at Eton in 
Fielding's time, as he was only a year older, and 
was intimate with Lyttelton. Thomas Augus- 
tine Arne, again, famous in days to come as Dr. 
Arne^ was doubtless also at this date practising 
sedulously upon that " miserable cracked com- 
mon flute," with which tradition avers he was 



A Memoir 9 

wont to torment his school-fellows. Gray and 
Horace Walpole belong to a later period. 

During his stay at Eton, Fielding had been rap- 
idly developing from a boy into a young man. 
When he left school it is impossible to say ; but 
he was probably seventeen or eighteen years of 
age, and it is at this stage of his career that must 
be fixed an occurrence which one of his biogra- 
phers places much farther on. This is his earliest 
recorded love-affair. At Lyme Regis there re- 
sided a young lady, who, in addition to great per- 
sonal charms, had the advantage of being the 
only daughter and heiress of one Solomon An- 
drew, deceased, a merchant of considerable local 
reputation. Lawrence says that she was Field- 
ing's cousin. This may be so ; but the state- 
ment is unsupported by any authority. It is cer- 
tain, however, that her father was dead, and that 
she was living *^ in maiden meditation " at Lyme 
with one of her guardians, Mr. Andrew Tucker. 
In his chance visits to that place, young Fielding 
appears to have become desperately enamoured 
of her, and to have sadly fluttered the Dorset 
dovecotes by his pertinacious and undesirable at- 
tentions. At one time he seems to have actually 
meditated the abduction of his ** flame," for an 
entry in the town archives, discovered by Mr. 
George Roberts, sometime Mayor of Lyme, who 



lo Henry Fielding 

tells the story, declares that Andrew Tucker, Esq., 
went in fear of his life ** owing to the behaviour 
of Henry Fielding and his attendant, or man/' 
Such a state of things (especially when guardians 
have sons of their own) is clearly not to be en- 
dured ; and Miss Andrew was prudently trans- 
ferred to the care of another guardian, Mr. 
Rhodes of Modbury, in South Devon, to whose 
son, a young gentleman of Oxford, she was 
promptly married. Burke {Landed Gentry, 1858) 
dates the marriage in 1726, a date which is prac- 
tically confirmed by the baptism of a child at Mod- 
bury in April of the following year. Burke further 
describes the husband as Mr. Ambrose Rhodes 
of Buckland House, Buckland-Tout-Saints. 
His son, Mr. Rhodes of Bellair, near Exeter, 
was gentleman of the Privy Chamber to George 
HI.; and one of his descendants possessed a 
picture which passed for the portrait of Sophia 
Western. The tradition of the Tucker family 
pointed to Miss Andrew as the original of Field- 
ing's heroine ; but though such a supposition is 
intelligible, it is untenable, since he says distinctly 
(Book XHI. chap. i. of Tom Jones) that his 
model was his first wife, whose likeness he more- 
over draws very specifically in another place, 
by declaring that she resembled Margaret 
Cecil, Lady Ranelagh, and, more nearly, "• the 



A Memoir ii 

famous Duchess of Mazarine,'' Hortensia Man- 
cini.-^ 

With this early escapade is perhaps to be con- 
nected what seems to have been one of Fielding's 
earliest literary efforts. This is a modernisation 
in burlesque octosyllabic verse of part of Juvenal's 
sixth satire. In the '' Preface" to the later pub- 
lished Miscellanies y it is said to have been '' orig- 
inally sketched out before he was Twenty,'' and 
to have constituted ^'all the Revenge taken by 
an injured Lover." But it must have been largely 
revised subsequent to that date, for it contains 
references to Mrs. Clive, Mrs. WofRngton, Gib- 
ber the younger, and even to Richardson's 
Pamela, It has no special merit, although some 
of the couplets have the true Swiftian turn. If 
Murphy's statement be correct, that the author 
** went from Eton to Leyden," it must have been 
planned at the latter place, where, he tells us in 
the preface to Don Quixote in England, he also 
began that comedy. Notwithstanding these lit- 
erary distractions, he is nevertheless reported to 
have studied the civilians **with a remarkable 
application for about two years." At the ex- 
piration of this time, remittances from home fail- 
ing, he was obliged to forego the lectures of the 
** learned Vitriarius " (then professor of Civil Law 

1 See Appendix No. I. : Fielding and Sarah Andrew. 



12 Henry Fielding 

at Leyden University), and return to London, 
which he did at the beginning of 1728 or the end 
of 1727.^ 

The fact was that his father, never a rich man, 
had married again. His second wife was a 
widow named Eleanor Rasa ; and by this time he 
was fast acquiring a second family. Under the 
pressure of his growing cares^ he found himself, 
however willing, as unable to maintain his eldest 
son in London as he had previously been to dis- 
charge his expenses at Leyden. Nominally, he 
made him an allowance of two hundred a year ; 
but this, as Fielding himself explained, ** any- 
body might pay that would." The consequence 
v/as, that not long after the arrival of the latter in 
the Metropolis he had given up all idea of pur- 
suing the law, to which his mother's legal con- 
nections had perhaps first attracted him, and had 
determined to adopt the more seductive occu- 
pation of living by his wits. At this date he 
was in the prime of youth. From the portrait by 
Hogarth representing him at a time when he was 
broken in health and had lost his teeth, it is diffi- 

1 See Peacock's Index to English-speaking' students who 
have graduated at Leydeit University ^ 1883, p. 35, where 
Fielding's name occurs under date of 16 March, 1728; and 
Cornhill Magazine for November, 1863, — "A Scotchman 
in Holland." 



A Memoir 13 

cult to reconstruct his likeness at twenty. But 
we may fairly assume the *' high-arched Roman 
nose " with which his enemies reproached him, 
the dark eyes, the prominent chin, and the humor- 
ous expression ; and it is clear that he must have 
been tall and vigorous, for he was over six feet 
when he died, and had been remarkably strong 
and active. Add to this that he inherited a 
splendid constitution, with an unlimited capacity 
for enjoyment, and we have a fair idea of Henry 
Fielding at that moment of his career, when with 
passions '' tremblingly alive all o'er " — as Murphy 
says — he stood, 

" This way and that dividing the swift mind," 

between the professions of hackney-writer and 
hackney-coachman.^ His natural bias was 
towards literature, and his opportunities, if not 
his inclinations, directed him to dramatic writing. 
It is not necessary to attempt any detailed 
account of the state of the stage at this epoch. 
Nevertheless, if only to avoid confusion in the 
future, it will be well to enumerate the several 
London theatres in 1728, the more especially as 
the list is by no means lengthy. First and fore- 
most there was the old Opera House in the Hay- 

1 Letters y etc. of Lady Mary Worthy Montagu ^ 1 86 1, ii. 
2S0. 



14 Henry Fielding 

market, built by Vanbrugh, as far back as 1705, 
upon the site now occupied by Her Majesty's 
Theatre. This was the home of that popular 
Italian song which so excited the anger of 
thorough-going Britons ; and here, at the begin- 
ning of 1728, they were performing HandeFs 
opera of Siroe^ and delighting the cognoscenti by 
Diie che fd, the echo-air in the same composer's 
Tolomeo. Opposite the Opera House, and, in 
position, only '*a few feet distant'' from the 
existing Haymarket Theatre, was the New, or 
Little Theatre in the Haymarket, which, from 
the fact that it had been opened eight years be- 
fore by ^* the French Comedians," was also 
sometimes styled the French House. Next 
comes the no-longer-existent theatre in Lincoln's 
Inn Fields, which Christopher Rich had rebuilt 
in 1714, and which his son John had made 
notorious for pantomimes. Here the Beggar's 
Opera, precursor of a long line of similar pro- 
ductions, had just been successfully produced. 
Finally, most ancient of them all, there was the 
Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane, otherwise the 
King's Play House, or Old House. The virtual 
patentees at this time were the actors Colley 
Cibber, Robert Wilks, and Barton Booth. The 
two former were just playing the ProvoKd Hus- 
band, in which the famous Anne Oldfield (Pope's 



A Memoir 15 

**Narcissa") had created a furore by her as- 
sumption of Lady Townly. These, in February, 
1728, were the four principal London theatres. 
Goodman's Fields, where Garrick made his 
dibut, was not opened until the following year, 
and Covent Garden belongs to a still later date. 

Fielding's first dramatic essay — or, to speak 
more precisely, the first of his dramatic essays 
that was produced upon the stage — was a five- 
act comedy entitled Love in Several Masques. 
It was played at Drury Lane in February, 1728, 
succeeding the Provoked Husband, In his 
*^ Preface" the young author refers to the dis- 
advantage under which he laboured in following 
close upon that comedy, and also in being 
** cotemporary with an Entertainment which en- 
grosses the whole Talk and Admiration of the 
Town," — Le,,the Beggar's Opera. He also 
acknowledges the kindness of Wilks and Gibber 
*' previous to its Representation," and the fact 
that he had thus acquired their suffrages makes it 
doubtful whether his stay at Leyden was not 
really briefer than is generally supposed, or that 
he left Eton much earlier. In either case he 
must have been in London some months before 
Love in Several Masques appeared, for a first play 
by an untried youth of twenty, however promis- 
ing, is not easily brought upon the boards in any 



1 6 Henry Fielding 

era ; and from his own utterances in Pasquin, 
ten years later, it is clear that it was no easier 
then than now. The sentiments of the Fustian 
of that piece in the following protest probably 
give an accurate picture of the average dramatic 
experiences of Henry Fielding: 

" These little things, Mr. Sneerwell, will sometimes hap- 
pen. Indeed a Poet undergoes a great deal before he 
comes to his Third Night ; first with the Muses, who are 
humorous Ladies, and must be attended ; for if they take it 
into their Head at any time to go abroad and leave you, 
you will pump your Brain in vain : Then, Sir, with the 
Master of a Playhouse to get it acted, whom you generally 
follow a quarter of a Year before you know whether he will 
receive it or no ; and then perhaps he tells you it won't do, 
and returns it you again, reserving the Subject, and perhaps 
the Name, which he brings out in his next Pantomime ; 
but if he should receive the Play, then you must attend 
again to get it writ out into Parts, and Rehears'd. Well, 
Sir, at last the Rehearsals begin ; then, Sir, begins another 
Scene of Trouble with the Actors, some of whom don't like 
their Parts, and all are continually plaguing you with Alter- 
ations : At length, after having waded thro' all these Diffi- 
culties, his [the ?] Play appears on the Stage, where one 
Man Hisses out of Resentment to the Author ; a Second out 
of Dislike to the House ; a Third out of Dislike to the 
Actor ; a Fourth out of Dislike to the Play ; a Fifth for the 
Joke sake ; a Sixth to keep all the rest in Company. Ene- 
mies abuse him, Friends give him up, the Play is damn'd, 
and the Author goes to the Devil, so ends the Farce." 



A Memoir 1 7 

To which Sneerwell replies, with much prompti- 
tude : ''The Tragedy rather, I think, Mr. 
FusiianJ' But whatever may have been its pre- 
liminary difficulties, Fielding's first play was not 
exposed to so untoward a fate. It was well re- 
ceived. As might be expected in a beginner, and 
as indeed the references in the Preface to 
Wycherley and Congreve would lead us to ex- 
pect, it was an obvious attempt in the manner of 
those then all-popular writers. The dialogue is 
ready and witty. But the characters have that 
obvious defect which Lord Beaconsfield recog- 
nised when he spoke in later life of his own 
earliest efforts. " Books written by boys," he 
says, " which pretend to give a picture of man- 
ners and to deal in knowledge of human nature 
must necessarily be founded on affectation." To 
this rule the personages of Love in Several 
Masques are no exception. They are drawn rather 
from the stage than from life, and there is little 
constructive skill in the plot. A certain booby 
squire, Sir Positive Trap, seems like a first indi- 
cation of some of the later successes in the 
novels ; but the rest of the dramatis personx are 
puppets. The success of the piece was probably 
owing to the acting of Mrs. Oldfield, who took 
the part of Lady Matchless, a character closely 
related to the Lady Townlys and Lady Betty 



1 8 Henry Fielding 

Modishes, in which she won her triumphs. She 
seems, indeed, to have been unusually interested 
in this comedy, for she consented to play in it 
notwithstanding a ** slight Indisposition'' con- 
tracted ^' by her violent Fatigue in the Part of 
Lady Townly,'' and she assisted the author with 
her corrections and advice — perhaps with her 
influence as an actress. Fielding's distinguished 
kinswoman Lady Mary Wortley Montagu also 
read the MS. Looking to certain scenes in it, 
the protestation in the Prologue — 

" Nought shall offend the Fair Ones' Ears to-day, 
Which they might blush to hear, or blush to say '* — 

has an air of insincerity, although, contrasted 
with some of the writer's later productions, Love 
in Several Masques is comparatively pure. But 
he might honestly think that the work which had 
received the approval of a stage-queen and a 
lady of quality should fairly be regarded as mor- 
ally blameless, and it is not necessary to bring 
any bulk of evidence to prove that the morality 
of 1728 differed from the morality of to-day. 

To the last-mentioned year is ascribed a poem 
entitled the ''Masquerade. Inscribed to C — t 
H — d — g — r. By Lemuel Gulliver, Poet Laure- 
ate to the King of Lilliput." In this Fielding 
made his satirical contribution to the attacks on 



A Memoir 19 

those impure gatherings organised by the noto- 
rious Heidegger, which Hogarth had not long be- 
fore stigmatised pictorially in the plate known to 
collectors as the *Marge Masquerade Ticket/' 
As verse this performance is worthless, and it 
is not very forcibly on the side of good manners ; 
but the ironic dedication has a certain touch of 
Fielding's later fashion. Two other poetical 
pieces, afterwards included in the Miscellanies of 
1743, also bear the date of 1728. One is A 
Description of U — n G — (alias Neu^ Hogs Nor- 
ton) in Com, Hants, which Mr. Keightley has 
identified with Upton Grey, near Odiham, in 
Hampshire. It is a burlesque description of a 
tumble-down country-house in which the writer 
was staying, and is addressed to Rosalinda. The 
other is entitled To Euthalia, from which it must 
be concluded that, in 1728, Sarah Andrew had 
found more than one successor. But in spite of 
some biographers, and of the apparent encour- 
agement given to his first comedy, Fielding does 
not seem to have followed up dramatic author- 
ship with equal vigour, or at all events with equal 
success. His real connection with the stage does 
not begin until January, 1730, when the Temple 
Beau was produced by Giffard the actor at the 
theatre in Goodman's Fields, which had then 
just been opened by Thomas Odell ; and it may 



20 Henry Fielding 

be presumed that his incentive was rather want 
of funds than desire of fame. The Temple Beau 
certainly shows an advance upon its predecessor ; 
but it is an advance in the same direction, imita- 
tion of Congreve ; and although Geneste ranks 
it among the best of Fielding's plays, it is doubt- 
ful whether modern criticism would sustain his 
verdict. It ran for a short time, and was then 
withdrawn. The Prologue was the work of 
James Ralph, afterwards Fielding's colleague in 
the Champion^ and it thus refers to the prevailing 
taste. The Beggar's Opera had killed Italian 
song, but now anew danger had arisen, — 

" Humour and Wit, in each politer Age, 
Triumphant, rear'd the Trophies of the Stage : 
But only Farce, and Shew, will now go down, 
And Ifarlegutn^sthe Darling of the Town.'* 

As if to confirm his friend's opinion, Fielding's 
next piece combined the popular ingredients 
above referred to. In March following he pro- 
duced at the Haymarket, under the pseudonym of 
Scriblerus Secundus, The Author s Farce, with a 
*' Puppet Show" called The Pleasures of the 
Town. In the Puppet Show, Henley, the Clare- 
Market Orator, and Samuel Johnson, the quack 
author of the popular Hurlothrumbo, were 
smartly satirised, as also was the fashionable 



A Memoir 21 

craze for Opera and Pantomime. But the most 
enduring part of this odd medley is the farce 
which occupies the two first acts, and under thin 
disguises no doubt depicts much which was 
within the writer's experience. At all events, 
Luckless, the author in the play, has more than 
one of the characteristics which distinguish the 
traditional portrait of Fielding himself in his 
early years. He wears a laced coat, is in love, 
writes plays, and cannot pay his landlady, who 
declares, with some show of justice, that she 
*' would no more depend on a Benefit-Night of 
an un-acted Play, than she wou'd on a Benefit- 
Ticket in an un-drawn Lottery.'' ** Her Floor 
(she laments) is all spoil'd with Ink — her Win- 
dows with Verses, and her Door has been almost 
beat down with Duns." But the most hum.or- 
ous scenes in the play — scenes really admirable 
in their ironic delineation of the seamy side of 
authorship in 1730 — are those in which Mr. 
Bookweight, the publisher — the Curll or Os- 
borne of the period — is shown surrounded by 
the obedient hacks, who feed at his table on 
** good Milk-porridge, very often twice a Day," 
and manufacture the murders, ghost-stories, 
political pamphlets, and translations from Virgil 
(out of Dryden) with which he supplies his cus- 
tomers. Here is one of them as good as any : 



22 Henry Fielding 

" Bookiveight, So, Mr. Index y what News with you ? 

Index, I have brought my Bill, Sir. 

Book. What's here? — for fitting the Motto oi Risum 
teneatis Amici to a dozen Pamphlets at Sixpence per each, 
Six Shillings — For Onutia vmcit Amor, d^ nos cedamus 
Avioriy Sixpence — For Difficile est Satyram non scribere^ 
Sixpence — Hum ! hum ! hum ! Sum total, for Thirty- 
six Latin Motto's, Eighteen Shillings ; ditto English^ One 
Shilling and Ninepence ; ditto Greek, Four, Four Shillings. 
These Greek Motto's are excessively dear. 

Ind. If you have them cheaper at either of the Univer- 
sities, I will give you mine for nothing. 

Book, You shall have your Money immediately, and 
pray remember that I must have two Latin Seditious 
Motto's and one Greek Moral Motto for Pamphlets by to- 
morrow Morning. . . . 

Ind, Sir, I shall provide them. Be pleas'd to look on 
that. Sir, and . print me Five hundred Proposals, and as 
many Receipts. 

Book. Proposals for printing by Subscription a new 
Translation of Cicero, Of the Nature of the Gods and his 
Tiisculan Questions, by Jeremy htdex, Esq. ; I am sorry 
you have undertaken this, for it prevents a Design of mine. 

Ind. Indeed, Sir, it does not, for you see all of the Book 
that I ever intend to publish. It is only a handsome Way 
of asking one's Friends for a Guinea. 

Book. Then you have not translated a Word of it, 
perhaps. 

Ind, Not a single Syllable. 

Book. Well, you shall have your Proposals forthwith ; 
but I desire you wou'd be a little more reasonable in your 
Bills for the future, or I shall deal with you no longer ; for 



A Memoir 23 

I have a certain Fellow of a College, who offers to furnish 
me with Second-hand Motto's out of the Spectator for Two- 
pence each. 

Ind. Sir, I only desire to live by my Goods, and I hope 
you will be pleas'd to allow some difference between a 
neat fresh Piece, piping hot out of the Classicks, and old 
thread-bare worn-out Stuff that has past thro' ev'ry Pedant's 
Mouth. . . :' 

The latter part of this amusing dialogue, refer- 
ring to Mr. Index's translation from Cicero, was 
added in an amended version of the Author s 
Farce, in which Fielding depicts another all-pow- 
erful personage in the literary life, — the actor- 
manager. This version, which appeared some 
years later, will, however, be more conveniently 
treated under its proper date, and it is only neces- 
sary to say here that the slight sketches of Marplay 
and Sparkish given in the first edition, were pre- 
sumably intended for Gibber and Wilks, with 
whom, notwithstanding the ** civil and kind Be- 
haviour " for which he had thanked them in the 
** Preface" to Love in Several Masques, the 
young dramatist was now, it seems, at war. In 
the introduction to the Miscellanies, he refers to 
*' a slight Pique '' with Wilks ; and it is not im- 
possible that the key to the difference may be 
found in the following passage : 

« Sparkish, What dost think of the Play ? 



24 Henry Fielding 

Marplay, It may be a very good one, for ought I know ; 
but I know the Author has no Interest. 

Spark, Give me Interest, and rat the Play. 

Mar, Rather rat the Play which has no Interest. In- 
terest sways as much in the Theatre as at Court. — And 
you know it is not always the Companion of Merit in either." 

The handsome student from Leyden — the po- 
tential Congreve who wrote Love in Several 
Masques, and had Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 
for patroness, might fairly be supposed to have 
expectations which warranted the civilities of 
Messrs. Wilks and Gibber ; but the ** Luckless '' 
of two years later had probably convinced them 
that his dramatic performances did not involve 
their sine qua non of success. In these circum- 
stances nothing perhaps could be more natural 
than that they should play their parts in his little 
satire. 

We have dwelt at some length upon the Auth- 
ors Farce, because it is the first of Fielding's 
plays in which, leaving the ** wit-traps " of Wych- 
erley and Congreve, he deals with the direct 
censure of contemporary folly, and because, apart 
from translation and adaptation, it is in this field 
that his most brilliant theatrical successes were 
won. For the next few years he continued to 
produce comedies and farces with great rapidity, 
both under his own name, and under the 



A Memoir 25 

pseudonym of Scriblerus Secundus. Most of 
these show manifest signs of haste, and some are 
recklessly immodest. We shall confine ourselves 
to one or two of the best, and do little more than 
enumerate the others. Of these latter, the 
Coffee-House Politician; or, The Justice caught in 
his own Trap, 1730, succeeded the Author's 
Farce. The leading idea, that of a tradesman 
who neglects his shop for ^* foreign affairs," ap- 
pears to be derived from Addison's excellent 
character-sketch in the Tatler of the ** Political 
Upholsterer.'' This is the more likely, in that 
Arne the musician, whose father is generally sup- 
posed to have been Addison's original, was 
Fielding's contemporary at Eton. Justice 
Squeezum, another character contained in this 
play, is a kind of first draft of the later Justice 
Thrasher in Amelia. The representation of the 
trading justice on the stage, however, was by no 
means new, since Justice Quorum in Coffey's 
Beggar's Wedding (with whom, as will appear 
presently, Fielding's name has been erroneously 
associated) exhibits similar characteristics. Omit- 
ting for the moment the burlesques of Tom 
Thumb, the Coffee-House Politician wsisfoWowed 
by the Letter Writers ; or A new Way to Keep a 
Wife at Home, 175 1, a brisk little farce, with one 
vigorously drawn character, that of Jack Com- 



26 Henry Fielding 

mons, a young university rake ; the Grub-Street 
Opera, 173 1 ; the farce of the Lottery, 1731? in 
which the famous Mrs. Clive, then Miss Raftor, 
appeared ; the Modern Husbancj, 1732 ; the Co- 
vent Garden Tragedy, 1732, a broad and rather 
riotous burlesque of Ambrose Philips' Distrest 
Mother; and the Debauchees; or, the Jesuit 
Caught, 1732 — which was based upon the then 
debated story of Father Girard and Catherine 
Cadiere. 

Neither of the two last-named pieces is worthy 
of the author, and their strongest condemnation 
in our day is that they were condemned in their 
own for their unbridled license, the Grub Street 
Journal going so far as to say that they had " met 
with the universal detestation of the Town/' 
The Modern Husband, which turns on that most 
loathsome of all commercial pursuits, the traffic 
of a husband in his wife's dishonour, appears, 
oddly enough, to have been regarded by its 
author with especial complacency. Its prologue 
lays stress upon the moral purpose ; it was dedi- 
cated to Sir Robert Walpole ; and from a couple 
of letters printed in Lady Mary Wortley Mon- 
tagu's correspondence, it is clear that it had 
been submitted to her perusal.^ It had, however, 
no great success upon the stage, and the chief 
1 Letters^ etc., 1 86 1, ii. 19, 20. 



A Memoir 27 

thing worth remembering about it is that it af- 
forded his last character to Wilks, who played 
the part of Bellamant. That ** slight Pique,'' of 
which mention has been made, was no doubt by 
this time a thing of the past. 

But if most of the works in the foregoing list 
can hardly be regarded as creditable to Fielding's 
artistic or moral sense, one of them at least de- 
serves to be excepted, and that is the burlesque 
of Tom Thumb, This was first brought out in 
1730 at the little theatre in the Haymarket, where 
it met with a favourable reception. In the fol- 
lowing year it was enlarged to three acts (in the 
first version there had been but two), and repro- 
duced at the same theatre as the Tragedy of 
Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom 
Thumb the Greats ** with the Annotations of H. 
Scriblerus Secundus." It is certainly one of the 
best burlesques ever written. As Baker observes 
in his Biographia Dramaiica, it may fairly be 
ranked as a sequel to Buckingham's Rehearsal, 
since it includes the absurdities of nearly all the 
writers of tragedies from the period when that 
piece stops to 1730. Am^ong the authors sat- 
irised are Nat. Lee, Thomson (whose famous 

** O Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O I " 

is parodied by 

" O Huncamunca, Huncamunca, O ! "), 



28 Henry Fielding 

Banks's Earl of Essex, a favourite play at Bar- 
tholomew Fair, the Busiris of Young, and the 
Aureng^ebe of Dryden, etc. The annotations, 
which abound in transparent references to Dr. 
Blenile^y, Mr. T[heobal]dy Mr. D[enni]s, are ex- 
cellent imitations of contemporary pedantry. 
One example, elicited in Act i by a reference to 
** giants," must stand for many: 

"That learned Historian Mr. S n in the third 

Number of his Criticism on our Author, takes great Pains 
to explode this Passage. It is, says he, difficult to guess 
what Giants are here meant, unless the Giant Despair in 
the Pilgrim's Progress, or the giant Greatness in the Royal 
Villain ; for I have heard of no other sort of Giants in the 
Reign of King Arthur, Petrus Buniianus makes three 
Tom Thumbs, one whereof he supposes to have been the 
same Person whom the Greeks called Hercules, and that 
by these Giants are to be understood the Centaurs slain by 
that Heroe. Another To7n Thu??ib he contends to have been 
no other than the Hermes Trismegistus of the Antients. 
The third Tom Thumb he places under the Reign of King 
Arthur ; to which third Tom Thujnb, says he, the Actions of 
the other two were attributed. Now, tho' I know that this 
Opinion is supported by an Assertion of Justus Lipsius, 
Thomam ilium- Thumbum nonalium quam Herculem fuisse 
satis constat ; yet shall I venture to oppose one Line of Mr. 
Midwinter, against them all. 

In Arthur's Court Tom Thumb did live, 

" But then, says Dr. B y, if we place To77t Thumb 

in the Court of King Arthur, it will be proper to place that 



A Memoir 29 

Court out of Britain, where no Giants were ever heard of. 
Speizcer, in his Fairy Queen, is of another Opinion, where 
describing Albion, he says, 

Far within, a salvage Nation dwelt 
Of hideous Giants. 
And in the same canto : 

Then Elfar, with two Brethren Giants had 
The one of which had two Heads, — 
The other three, 

Risum teneatis, Amici." 

Of the play itself it is difficult to give an idea 
by extract, as nearly every line travesties some 
tragic passage once familiar to play-goers, and 
now utterly forgotten. But the following lines 
from one of the speeches of Lord Grizzle — a 
part admirably acted by Liston in later years ^ — 
are a fair specimen of its ludicrous use (or rather 
abuse) of simile : 

" Yet think not long, I will my Rival bear. 
Or unreveng'd the slightest Willow wear ; 
The gloomy, brooding Tempest now confin'd, 
Within the hollow Caverns of my Mind, 
In dreadful Whirl, shall rowl along the Coasts, 
Shall thin the Land of all the Men it boasts, 

J Compare Hazlitt, Lectures On the English Comic Writ- 
ers, 18 19, pp. 322-4. 



30 Henry Fielding 

And cram up ev'ry Chink of Hell with Ghosts. 
So have I seen, in some dark Winter's Day, 
A sudden Storm rush down the Sky's High-Way, 
Sweep thro' the Streets with terrible ding-dong, 
Gush thro' the Spouts, and wash whole Crowds along. 
The crowded Shops, the thronging Vermin skreen, 
Together cram the Dirty and the Clean, 
And not one Shoe-Boy in the Street is seen." 

In the modern version of Kane O'Hara, to 
which songs were added, the Tragedy of Trage- 
dies still keeps, or kept the stage. But its crown- 
ing glory is its traditional connection with Swift, 
who told Mrs. Pilkington that he '• had not 
laugh'd above twice "in his life, once at the 
tricks of a merry-andrew, and again when (in 
Fielding's burlesque) Tom Thumb killed the 
ghost. ^ This is an incident of the earlier ver- 
sions, omitted in deference to the critics, for 
which the reader will seek vainly in the play as 
now printed ; and he will, moreover, discover 
that Mrs. Pilkington's memory served her im- 
perfectly, since it is not Tom Thumb who kills 
the ghost, but the ghost of Tom Thumb which is 
killed by his jealous rival, Lord Grizzle. A tri- 

^ Memoirs y 1754,111. 155. Fielding himself refers to this 
exploit in the Prologue to TTie Modern Husband : — 
« He taught Tom Thumb strange victories to boast, 
Slew heaps of giants, and then — killed a ghost ! " 



A Memoir 31 

fling inaccuracy of this sort, however, is rather 
in favour of the truth of the story than against it, 
for a pure fiction w^ould in all probability have 
been more precise. Another point of interest in 
connection with this burlesque is the frontispiece 
which Hogarth supplied to the edition of 1731. 
It has no special value as a design, but it consti- 
tutes the earliest reference to that friendship with 
the painter, of which so many traces are to be 
found in Fielding's works. 

Hitherto Fielding had succeeded best in bur- 
lesque. But, in 1732, the same year in which he 
produced the Modern Husband, the Debauchees, 
and the Covent Garden Tragedy, he made an 
adaptation of yioYieve's M6dicin malgrdlui, which 
had already been imitated in English by Mrs. 
Centlivre and others. This little piece, to which 
he gave the title of the Mock-Doctor ; or, The 
Dumb Lady curd, was well received. The 
French original was rendered with tolerable close- 
ness ; but here and there Fielding has introduced 
little touches of his own, as, for instance, where 
Gregory (Sganarelle) tells his wife Dorcas 
(Martine), whom he has just been beating, that 
as they are but one, whenever he beats her he 
beats half of himself. To this she replies by 
requesting that for the future he will beat the 
other half. An entire scene (the thirteenth) was 



32 Henry Fielding 

also added at the desire of Miss Raftor, who 
played Dorcas, and thought her part too short. 
This is apparently intended as a burlesque of the 
notorious quack, Dr. John Misaubin, of St. 
Martin's Lane, to whom the Mock-Doctor was 
ironically dedicated. He was the proprietor of 
a famous pill, and was introduced by Hogarth 
into the Harlofs Progress, Gregory was played 
by Theophilus Gibber, and the preface contains 
a complimentary reference to his acting, and the 
expected retirement of his father from the stage. 
Neither Genest nor Lawrence gives the date 
when the piece was first produced, but if the 
** April" on the very dubious author's benefit 
ticket attributed to Hogarth be correct, it must 
have been in the first months of 1732. 

The cordial reception of the Mock-Doctor 
seems to have encouraged Fielding to make 
further levies upon Moliere, and he speaks of his 
hope to do so in the '' Preface."" As a matter of 
fact, he produced a version of L'Avare at Drury 
Lane in the following year, which entirely out- 
shone the older versions of Shadwell and Ozell, 
and gained from Voltaire the praise of having 
added to the original ** quelques beautes de dia- 
logue particulieres k s^ (Fielding's) nation."" 
Lovegold, its leading rdle^ became a stock part. 
It was w^U played by its first actor Griffin, and 



A Memoir 2>Z 

was a favourite exercise with Macklin, Shuter, 
and (in our own days) Phelps. 

In February, 1733, when \he Miser was first 
acted, Fielding was five and twenty. His means 
at this time were, in all probability, exceedingly 
uncertain. The small proportion of money due to 
him at his mother's death had doubtless been long 
since exhausted, and he must have been almost 
wholly dependent upon the precarious profits of 
his pen. That he was assisted by rich and noble 
friends to any material extent appears, in spite of 
Murphy, to be unlikely. At all events, an occa- 
sional dedication to the Duke of Richmond or 
the Earl of Chesterfield cannot be regarded as 
proof positive. Lyttelton, who certainly be- 
friended him in later life, was for a great part of 
this period absent on the Grand Tour, and Ralph 
Allen had not yet come forward. In default of 
the always deferred allowance, his father's house 
at Salisbury (r) was no doubt open to him ; and 
it is plain, from indications in his minor poems, 
that he occasionally escaped into the country. 
But in London he lived for the most part, and 
probably not very worshipfully. What, even 
now, would be the life of a young man of Field- 
ing's age, fond of pleasure, careless of the future, 
very liberally equipped with high spirits, and 
straightway exposed to the perilous seductions of 



34 Henry Fielding 

the stage ? Fielding had the defects of his qual- 
ities, and was no better than the rest of those 
about him. He was manly, and frank, and gen- 
erous ; but these characteristics could scarcely 
protect him from the terrors of the tip-stafi, and 
the sequels of '^t'other bottle/' Indeed, he very 
honestly and unfeignedly confesses to the lapses 
of his youth in the Journey from this World to 
the Next, adding that he pretended " to very little 
Virtue more than general Philanthropy, and pri- 
vate Friendship."^ It is therefore but reasona- 
ble to infer that his daily life must have been 
more than usually characterised by the vicissi- 
tudes of the eighteenth-century prodigal, — alter- 
nations from the " Rose" to a Clare-Market or- 
dinary, from gold-lace to fustian, from champagne 
to *' British Burgundy." In a rhymed petition 
to Walpole, he makes pleasant mirth of what no 
doubt was sometimes sober truth — his debts, 
his duns, and his dinnerless condition. He (the 
verses tell us) 

" from his Garret can look down 

On the whole Street of Arlington,^'' * 

Again — 

*< The Family that dines the latest 

Is in our Street esteem'd the greatest ; 

1 Miscellmiies, by Henry Fielding, Esq., 1743, ii. 62. 

2 Where Sir Robert lived, at No. 17. 



A Memoir 35 

But latest Hours must surely fall 
Before him who ne'er dines at all ; " 

and 

" This too doth in my Favour speak, 
Your Levee is but twice a Week ; 
From mine I can exclude but one Day, 
My Door is quiet on a Sunday,^'* 

When he can admit so much even jestingly of 
himself, it is but legitimate to presume that there 
is no great exaggeration in the portrait of him in 
1735? by the anonymous satirist of SeasonabU 
Reproof: 

<* F ^y who yesterday appeared so rough. 

Clad in coarse Frize^ and plaister'd down with Snuffs 
See how his Instant gaudy Trappings shine ; 
What Play-house Bard was ever seen so fine ! 
But this, not from his Hwriour flows, you'll say, 
But mere Necessity ; — for last Night lay 
In Pawiiy the Velvet which he wears to Day." 

His work bears traces of the inequalities and 
irregularities of his mode of living. Although in 
certain cases (e^g*^ the revised edition of Tom 
Thumb) the artist and scholar seems to have 
spasmodically asserted himself, the majority of 
his plays v^ere hasty and ill-considered perform- 

1 Miscellanies y 1743, i. 42. The poem is headed "Writ- 
ten in the Year 1730." 



36 Henry Fielding 

ances, most of which (as Lady Mary said) he 
would have thrown into the fire *' if meat could 
have been got without money, and money with- 
out scribbling/' '* When he had contracted to 
bring on a play, or a farce," says Murphy, ''it 
is well known, by many of his friends now living, 
that he would go home rather late from a tavern, 
and would, the next morning, deliver a scene to 
the players, written upon the papers, which had 
wrapped the tobacco, in which he so much de- 
lighted/' ^ It is not easy to conceive, unless 
Fielding's capacities as a smoker were unusual, 
that any large contribution to dramatic literature 
could have been made upon the wrappings of 
Virginia or Freeman's Best ; but that his reputa- 
tion for careless production was established 
among his contemporaries is manifest from the 
following passage in a burlesque ** Author's 
Will" published in the Universal Spectator of 
Oldys : 

** Item, I give and bequeath to my very negli- 
gent Friend Henry Drama, Esq., all my Indus- 
try. And whereas the World may think this an 
unnecessary Legacy, forasmuch as the said Henry- 
Drama, Esq., brings on the stage four Pieces 
every Season ; yet as such Pieces are always 
wrote with uncommon Rapidity, and during such 
» Works, 1762, pp. 26-7. 



A Memoir 



01 



fatal Intervals only as the Stocks have been on 
the Folly this Legacy will be of use to him to re- 
vise and correct his Works. Furthermore, for 
fear the said Hc^ry Drama should make an ill 
Use of the sai: -^r, and expend it all on a 

Ballad Farceyii- ■ the said Legacy should 

be paid him by e .^ :as, and as his Neces- 

sities may require/*' ^ 

There can be little doubt that the above quota- 
tion, which seems to have hitherto escaped in- 
quiry, refers to none other than the ** very negli- 
gent " Author of the Modem Husban4 and the 
Old Debauchees — in other words, to Henry 
Fieldins: 



&• 



1 GenUtmav^s Magazhu^ J^J* '734- 



CHAPTER II 

Fielding and Timothy Fielding ; The Intriguing Chamber- 
maid^ ^734 ; ^^ Author^ s Farce revived, 1734 ; Theoph- 
ilus Gibber; Don Quixote in England, 1734; a farce 
and a comedy ; marriage, 1735 (?) ; Miss Charlotte Crad- 
ock; love-poems; life at East Stour; the Great Mogul's 
Company; Pasquin, 1736; plot, incidents and extracts; 
The Historical Register ^ ^737 1 the Licensing Act; 
Fielding as a playwright. 

T^HE very subordinate part in the Miser of 
^ '' Furnish, an Upholsterer," was taken by 
a third-rate actor, whose surname has been pro- 
ductive of no little misconception among Henry 
Fielding's biographers. This was Timothy 
Fielding, sometime member of the Haymarket 
and Drury Lane companies, and proprietor, for 
several successive years, of a booth at Bartholo- 
mew; Southwark, and other fairs. In the absence 
of any Christian name, Mr. Lawrence seems to 
have rather rashly concluded that the Fielding 
mentioned by Genest as having a booth at Bar- 
tholomew Fair in 1773 with Hippisley (the 
original Peachum of the Beggar's Opera) j was 
Fielding the dramatist ; and the mistake thus 
originated at once began that prosperous course 



A Memoir 39 

which usually awaits any slip of the kind. It 
misled one notoriously careful inquirer, who, in 
his interesting chronicles of Bartholomew Fair, 
minutely investigated the actor's history, giving 
precise details of his doings at '' Bartlemy '' from 
1728 to 1736; but, although the theory in- 
volved obvious inconsistencies, apparently with- 
out any suspicion that the proprietor of the booth 
which stood, season after season, in the yard of 
the George Inn at Smithfield, was an entirely 
different person from his greater namesake. 
The late Dr. Rimbault carried the story farther 
still, and attempted to show, in Notes and Queries 
for May, 1859, that Henry Fielding had a booth 
at Tottenham Court in 1738, ^^ subsequent to his 
admission into the Middle Temple ; " and he also 
promised to supply additional particulars to the 
effect that even 1738 vv'as not the " last year of 
Fielding's career as a booth-proprietor." At 
this stage (probably for good reasons) inquiry 
seems to have slumbered, although, with the 
fatal vitality of error, the statement continued 
(and still continues) to be repeated in various 
quarters. In 1875, however, the late Mr. 
Frederick Latreille published a short article in 
Notes and Queries,^ proving conclusively, by ex- 
tracts from contemporary newspapers and other 
* June 26. (5th Series, iii. 502.) 



40 Henry Fielding 

sources, that the Timothy Fielding above re- 
ferred to was the real Fielding of the fairs ; that 
he became landlord of the Buffalo Tavern '' at 
the corner of Bloomsbury Square " in 1733 ; and 
that he died in August, 1738, his Christian name, 
so often suppressed, being duly recorded in the 
register of the neighbouring church of St. 
George's^ where he was buried. The admirers 
of the novelist owe Mr. Latreille a debt of grati- 
tude for this opportune discovery. It is true 
that a certain element of Bohem/ian picturesque- 
ness is lost to Henry Fielding's life, already not 
very rich in recorded incident ; and it would cer- 
tainly have been curious if he, who ended his 
days in trying to dignify the judicial office, should 
have begun life by acting the part of a *^ trading 
justice," namely that of Quorum in Coffey's 
Beggar's Wedding, which Timothy Fielding had 
played at Drury Lane. But, on the whole, it is 
satisfactory to know that his early experiences did 
not, of necessity, include those of a strolling 
player. Some obscure and temporary con- 
nection with Bartholomew Fair he may have 
had, as Smollett, in the scurrilous pamphlet 
issued in 1752, makes him say that he blew a 
trumpet there in quality of herald to a collection 
of wild beasts ; ^ but this is probably no more 
1 A Faithful Narrative^ etc., 1752, p. 1 1 (see Post^ ch. vi.). 



A Memoir 41 

than an earlier and uglier form of the apparition 
laid by Mr. Latreille. The only positive evi- 
dence of any connection between Henry Field- 
ing and the Smithfield carnival is, that Theophilus 
Gibber's company played the Mhe^r at their 
booth in August, 1733. 

With the exception of the Miser and an after- 
piece, never printed, entitled Deborah; or, A 
Wife for you all, which was acted for Miss 
Rafter's benefit in April, 1733, nothing important 
was brought upon the stage by Fielding until 
January of the following year, when he produced 
the Intriguing Chambermaid, and a revised version 
of the Author's Farce. By a succession of 
changes, which it is impossible here to describe 
in detail, considerable alterations had taken place 
in the management of Drury Lane. In the first 
place, Wilks was dead, and his share in the 
Patent was represented by his widow. Booth 
also was dead, and Mrs. Booth had sold her 
share to Giffard of Goodman's Fields, while the 
elder Gibber had retired. At the beginning of 
the season of 1733-34 the leading patentee was 
an amateur called Highmore, who had purchased 
Gibber's share. He had also purchased part of 
Booth's share before his death in May, 1733. The 
only other shareholder of importance was Mrs. 
Wilks. Shortly after the opening of the theatre 



42 Henry Fielding 

in September, the greater part of the Drury Lane 
Company, led by the younger Gibber, revolted 
from Highmore and Mrs. Wilks, and set up for 
themselves. Matters were farther complicated 
by the fact that John Rich had not long opened a 
new theatre in Covent Garden, which consti- 
tuted a fresh attraction ; and that what Fielding 
called the ^* wanton affected Fondness for foreign 
Musick," was making the Italian opera a danger- 
ous rival — the more so as it was patronised by 
the nobility. Without actors the patentees were 
in serious case. Miss Raftor, who about this 
time became Mrs. Clive, appears, however, to 
have remained faithful to them, as also did 
Henry Fielding. The lively little comedy of the 
Intriguing Chambermaid was adapted from the 
Relour Imprdvu of Regnard especially for her ; 
and in its published form was preceded by an 
epistle in which the dramatist dwells upon the 
'* Factions and Divisions among the Players/' 
and compliments her upon her compassionate ad- 
herence to Mr. Highmore and Mrs. Wilks in 
their time of need. The epistle is also valuable 
for its warm and generous testimony to the 
private character of this accomplished actress, 
whose part in real life, says Fielding, was that of 
**the best Wife, the best Daughter, the best 
Sister, and the best Friend." The words are 



A Memoir 43 

more than mere compliment ; they appear to 
have been true. Madcap and humourist as she 
was, no breath of slander seems ever to have 
tarnished the reputation of Catherine Clive, 
whom Johnson — a fine judge, when his preju- 
dices were not actively aroused — called in addi- 
tion *' the best player that he ever saw/' ^ 

The Intriguing Chambermaid was produced on 
the i^th of January, 1734. Lettice, from whom 
the piece was named, was well personated by 
Mrs. Clive, and Colonel Bluff by Macklin, the 
only actor of any promise that Highmore had 
been able to secure. With the new comedy the 
Author's Farce was revived. It would be un- 
necessary to refer to this again, but for the addi- 
tions that were made to it. These consisted 
chiefly in the substitution of Marplay Junior for 
Sparkish, the actor-manager of the first version. 
The death of Wilks may have been a reason for 
this alteration ; but a stronger was no doubt the 
desire to throw ridicule upon Theophilus Cibber, 
whose behaviour in deserting Drury Lane imme- 
diately after his father had sold his share to High- 
more had not passed without censure, nor had his 
father's action escaped sarcastic comment. The- 
ophilus Cibber — whose best part was Beaumont 
and Fletcher's Copper Captain, and who carried 

1 Hill's BoszuelVs Johnsoft^ 1887, v. 126. 



44 Henry Fielding 

the impersonation into private life — had played 
in several of Fielding's pieces ; but Fielding had 
linked his fortunes to those of the patentees, and 
was consequently against the players in this quar- 
rel. The following scene was accordingly added 
to the farce for the exclusive benefit of ^' Young 
Marplay '' : 



**Marplay junior, Mr. Luckless, I kiss your Hands — 
Sir, I am your most obedient humble Servant; you see, 
Mr. LucklesSy what Power you have over me. I attend 
your Commands, tho' several Persons of Quality have staid 
at Court for me above this Hour. 

Luckless, I am obliged to you — I have a Tragedy for 
your House, Mr. Marplay, 

Mar, jun. Ha ! if you will send it me, I will give you 
my Opinion of it ; and if I can make any Alterations in it 
that will be for its Advantage, I will do it freely. 

Witmore, Alterations, Sir? 

Mar. jun. Yes, Sir, Alterations — I will maintain it, let 
a Play be never so good, without Alteration it will do noth- 
ing. 

Wit, Very odd indeed. 

Mar. jun. Did you ever write. Sir ? 

Wit. No, Sir, I thank Heav'n. 

Mar. jun. Oh ! your humble Servant — your very hum- 
ble Servant, Sir. When you write yourself you will find 
the Necessity of Alterations. Why, Sir, wou'd you guess 
that I had alter'd Shakespeare ? 

Wit. Yes, faith, Sir, no one sooner. 



A Memoir 45 

Mar, jun, Alack-a-day ! Was you to see the Plays 
when they are brought to us — a Parcel of crude, undi- 
gested Stuff. We are the Persons, Sir, who lick them into 
Form, that mould them into Shape — The Poet make the 
Play indeed ! The Colour-man might be as well said to 
make the Picture, or the Weaver the Coat : My Father and 
I, Sir, are a Couple of poetical Tailors ; when a Play is 
brought us, we consider it as a Tailor does his Coat, we cut 
it, Sir, we cut it : And let me tell you, we have the exact 
Measure of the Town, we know how to fit their Taste. 
The Poets, between you and me, are a Pack of igno- 
rant 

Wit. Hold, hold, sir. This is not quite so civil to T^Ir. 
Luckless : Besides, as I take it, you have done the Town 
the Honour of writing yourself. 

Mar, jun. Sir, you are a Man of Sense ; and express your- 
self well. I did, as you say, once make a small Sally into 
Parnassus, took a sort of flying Leap over Helicon : But 
if ever they catch me there again — Sir, the Town have 
a Prejudice to my Family; for if any Play cou'd have made 
them ashamed to damn it, mine must. It was all over Plot. 
It wou'd have made half a dozen Novels : Nor was it 
cram'd with a pack of Wit-traps, like Congreve and Wycherly, 
where every one knows when the Joke was coming. I 
defy the sharpest Critick of 'em all to know when any Jokes 
of mine were coming. The Dialogue was plain, easy, and 
natural, and not one single Joke in it from the Beginning to 
the End : Besides, Sir, there was one Scene of tender mel- 
ancholy Conversation, enough to have melted a Heart of 
Stone ; and yet they damn'd it : And they damn'd them- 
selves ; for they shall have no more of mine. 

Wit, Take pity on the Town, Sir. 



46 Henry Fielding 

Mar, jun, I ! No, Sir, no. I'll write no more. No 
more ; unless I am forc'd to it. 

Luckless. That's no easy thing, Marplay, 

Mar. jun. Yes, Sir. Odes, Odes, a Man may be oblig'd 
to write to those you know." 



These concluding lines plainly refer to the elder 
Gibber's appointment as Laureate in 1730, and to 
those ** annual Birth-day Strains,'' with which he 
so long delighted the irreverent ; while the alter- 
ation of Shakespeare and the cobbling of plays 
generally, satirised again in a later scene, are 
strictly in accordance with contemporary ac- 
counts of the manners and customs of the two 
dictators of Drury Lane. The piece indicated 
by Marplay Junior was probably Theophilus Gib- 
ber's Lover ^ which had been produced in Janu- 
ary, 173 1, with very moderate success. 

After the Intriguing Chambermaid and the re- 
vived Author's Farce, Fielding seems to have 
made farther exertions for *' the distressed Actors 
in Drury Lane." He had always been an ad- 
mirer of Gervantes, frequent references to whose 
master-work are to be found scattered through 
his plays ; and he now busied himself with com- 
pleting and expanding the loose scenes of the 
comedy of Don Quixote in England, which (as 
before stated) he had sketched at Leyden for his 



A Memoir 47 

own diversion. He had already thought of bring- 
ing it upon the stage, but had been dissuaded 
from doing so by Gibber and Booth, who re- 
garded it as wanting in novelty. Now, however, 
he strengthened it by the addition of some elec- 
tion scenes, in which — he tells Lord Chesterfield in 
the dedication — he designed to give a lively 
representation of ^* the Calamities brought on a 
Country by general Corruption ; " and it was 
duly rehearsed. But unexpected delays took 
place in its production ; the revolted players re- 
turned to Drury Lane ; and, lest the actors' ben- 
efits should further retard its appearance by 
postponing it until the winter season, Fielding 
transferred it to the Haymarket, where, accord- 
ing to Geneste, it was acted in April, i734- As 
a play, Don Quixote in England has few stage 
qualities and no plot to speak of. But the Don 
with his whimsies, and Sancho with his appetite 
and string of proverbs, are conceived in some- 
thing of the spirit of Cervantes. Squire Badger, 
too, a rudimentary Squire Western, well repre- 
sented by Macklin, is vigorously drawn ; and 
the song of his huntsman Scut, beginning with 
the fine line *' The dusky Night rides down the 
Sky," has a verse that recalls a practice of which 
Addison accuses Sir Roger de Goverly : 



48 Henry Fielding 

** A brushing Fox in yonder Wood, 

Secure to find we seek ; 
For why, I carry'd sound and good, 

A Cartload there last Week. 

And a Hiuiting uue will ^^."^ 

The election scenes, though but slightly attached 
to the main story, are keenly satirical, and con- 
sidering that Hogarth's famous series of kindred 
prints belongs to a much later date, must cer- 
tainly have been novel, as may be gathered from 
the following little colloquy between Mr. Mayor 
and Messrs. Guzzle and Retail : 

«* Mayor {^to RetaW). ... I like an Opposition, because 
otherwise a Man may be oblig'd to vote against his Party ; 
therefore when we invite a Gentleman to stand, we invite 
him to spend his Money for the Honour of his Party; and 
when both Parties have spent as much as they are able, 
every honest Man will vote according to his Conscience. 

Gmz, Mr. Mayor talks like a Man of Sense and Hon- 
our, and it does me good to hear him. 

May, Ay, ay, Mr. Guzzle, I never gave a Vote contrary 
to my Conscience. I have very earnestly recommended the 
Country-Interest to all my Brethren : But before that, I 
recommended the Town-Interest, that is, the interest of 

1 The earliest form of the famous " Roast Beef of Old 
England " is also to be found in Do7i Quixote in Engla7id, 
Richard Leveridge took Fielding's first verse, added others, 
and set the whole to music (Hullah's Song Book, 1866, No. 
xxxix.). 



A Memoir 49 

this Corporation ; and first of all I recommended to every 
particular Man to take a particular Care of himself. And 
it is with a certain way of Reasoning, That he who serves 
me best, will serve the Town best ; and he that serves the 
Town best, will serve the Country best." 

In the January and February of 177), Fielding 
produced two more pieces at Drury Lane, a bal- 
lad-farce and a five-act comedy. The farce — a 
lively trifle enough — was An Old Man taught 
Wisdom, a title subsequently changed to the Vir- 
gin Unmasked, It was obviously written to dis- 
play the talents of Mrs. Clive, who played in it 
her favourite character of a hoyden, and, after 
** interviewing " a number of suitors chosen by 
her father, finally ran away with Thomas the 
footman — a course in those days not without its 
parallel in high life, above stairs as well as below. 
It appears to have succeeded, though Bookish, 
one of the characters, w^as entirely withdrawn in 
deference to some disapprobation on the part of 
the audience ; while the part of Wormwood, a 
lawyer, which is found in the latest editions, is 
said to have been '^omitted in representation." 
The comedy, entitled The Universal Gallant; or. 
The different Husbands, was scarcely so fortunate. 
Notwithstanding that Quin, who, after an absence 
of many years, had returned to Drury Lane, 
playing a leading part, and that Theophilus Cib- 



so Henry Fielding 

ber in the hero, Captain Smart, seems to have 
been fitted with a character exactly suited to his 
talents and idiosyncrasy, the play ran no more 
than three nights. Till the third act was almost 
over, *' the Audience^'' says the Prompter (as 
quoted by ^* Sylvanus Urban"), *^sat quiet, in 
hopes it would mend, till finding it grew worse 
and worse, they lost all Patience, and not an Ex- 
pression or Sentiment afterwards pass'd without 
its deserved Censured Perhaps it is not to be 
wondered at that the author — ''the prolifick 
Mr, Fielding,'' as the Prompter calls him, attrib- 
uted its condemnation to causes other than its 
lack of interest. In his Advertisement he openly 
complains of the *' cruel Usage" his ''poor 
Play'' had met with, and of the barbarity of the 
young men about town who made "a Jest of 
damning Plays" — a pastime which, whether it 
prevailed in this case or not, no doubt existed, 
as Sarah Fielding afterwards refers to it in David 
Simple. If an author — he goes on to say — "be 
so unfortunate [as] to depend on the success of 
his Labours for his Bread, he must bean inhuman 
Creature indeed, who would out of sport and 
wantonness prevent a Man from getting a Liveli- 
hood in an honest and inoffensive Way, and make 
a jest of starving him and his Family." The 
plea is a good one if the play be good ; but if 



A Memoir 51 

not, it is worthless. In this respect the public 
are like the French Cardinal in the story ; and 
when the famished writer's work fails to enter- 
tain them, they are fully justified in doubting his 
claim to exist. There is no reason for supposing 
that the Universal Gallant deserved a better fate 
than it met with. 

Judging from the time which elapsed between 
the production of this play and that of Pasquin 
(Fielding's next theatrical venture), it has been 
conjectured that the interval was occupied by his 
marriage, and brief experience as a Dorsetshire 
country gentleman. The exact date of his mar- 
riage is not known, though it is generally assumed 
to have taken place in the beginning of 1735. 
But it may well have been earlier, for it will be 
observed that in the above quotation from the 
Preface to the Universal Gallant, which is dated 
from ** Buckingham Street, Feb. 12," he indi- 
rectly speaks of *^his family.'' This, it is true, 
may be no more than the pious fraud of a bache- 
lor ; but if it be taken literally, we must conclude 
that his marriage was already so far a thing of the 
past that he was already a father. This suppo- 
sition would account for the absence of any 
record of the birth of a child during his forthcom- 
ing residence at East Stour, by the explanation 
that it had already happened in London ; and it 



52 Henry Fielding 

is not impossible that the entry of the marriage, 
too, may be hidden away in some obscure Met- 
ropolitan parish register, since those of Salisbury 
have been fruitlessly searched. At this distance 
of time, however, speculation is fruitless ; and, 
in default of more definite information, the 
** spring of 1735," which Keightley gives, must 
be accepted as the probable date of the marriage. 

Concerning the lady, the particulars are more 
precise. She was a Miss Charlotte Cradock, 
one of three sisters living upon their own means 
at Salisbury, or — as it was then styled — New 
Sarum. Mr. Keightley's personal inquiries, 
circa 1858, elicited the information that the 
family, now extinct, was highly respectable, but 
not of New Sarum's best society. Richardson, 
in one of his malevolent outbursts, asserted that 
the sisters were illegitimate ; ^ but, says the 
writer above referred to, ** of this circumstance 
we have no other proof, and I am able to add 
that the tradition of Salisbury knows nothing of 
it." They were, however, celebrated for their 
personal attractions ; and if the picture given in 
Tom Jones^ accurately represents the first Mrs. 
Fielding, she must have been a most charming 
brunette. Something of the stereotyped charac- 
teristics of a novelist's heroine obviously enter 

1 Correspondence f 1804, iv. 60. 2 Bk. iv., ch. 2. 



A Memoir S3 

into the description ; but the luxuriant black hair, 
which, cut ** to comply with the modern Fash- 
ion," '' curled so gracefully in her Neck," the 
lustrous eyes, the dimple in the right cheek, the 
chin rather full than small, and the complexion 
having ** more of the Lilly than of the Rose," 
but flushing with exercise or modesty, are, doubt- 
less, accurately set down. In speaking of the 
nose as *' exactly regular," Fielding appears to 
have deviated slightly from the truth ; for we 
learn from Lady Louisa Stuart that, in this respect, 
Miss Cradock's appearance had '^suffered a 
little " from an accident mentioned in Amelia^ the 
overturning of a chaise.-^ Whether she also pos- 
sessed the mental qualities and accomplishments 
which fell to the lot of Sophia Western, we have 
no means of determining ; but Lady Louisa 
Stuart is again our authority for saying that she 
was as amiable as she was handsome.^ 

From the love-poems in the first volume of the 
Miscellanies of 1743 — poems which their author 
declares to have been *' Productions of the Heart 
rather than of the Head"^ — it is clear that 
Fielding had been attached to his future wife 

1 See Fos^f ch. 4 and ch. 6. 

'^ Letters^ etc., of Lady Mary Wort ley Montagu^ 1 86 1, i. 
io6. 
^ Miscellanies f I743> i'> "• 



54 Henry Fielding 

for several years previous to 1735. One of them, 
Advice to the Nymphs of New S m, cele- 
brates the charms of Celia — the poetical equiva- 
lent for Charlotte — as early as 1730; another, 
containing a reference to the player Anthony 
Boheme, who died in 173 1, was probably written 
at the same time ; while a third, in which, upon 
the special intervention of Jove himself, the prize 
of beauty is decreed by Venus to the Salisbury 
sisters, may be of an earlier date than any. The 
year 1730 was the year of his third piece, the 
Author s Farce, and he must therefore have been 
paying his addresses to Miss Cradock not very 
long after his arrival in London. This is a fact 
to be borne in mind. So early an attachment to 
a good and beautiful girl, living no farther off 
than Salisbury, where his own father probably re- 
sided, is scarcely consistent with the reckless 
dissipation which had been laid to his charge, 
although, on his own showing, he was by no means 
faultless. But it is a part of natures like his to 
exaggerate their errors in the moment of re- 
pentance ; and it may well be that Henry Field- 
ing, too, was not so black as he painted himself 
in the Journey from this World to the Next. Of 
his love-verses he says — '' this Branch of Writ- 
ing is what I very little pretend to ; " ^ and it 
^ Miscellanies^ I743» i»i ii» 



A Memoir 55 

would be misleading to rate them highly, for, un- 
like his literary descendant, Thackeray, he never 
attained to any special quality of note.^ But 
some of his octosyllabics, if they cannot be called 
equal to Prior's, fall little below Swift's. *' I 
hate '' — cries he in one of the pieces, 
" I hate the Town, and all its Ways ; 

Ridotto's, Opera's, and Plays ; 

The Ball, the Ring, the Mall, the Court; 

Wherever the Beau-Monde resort . . . 

All CofFee-Houses, and their Praters; 

All Courts of Justice, and Debaters ; 

All Taverns, and the Sots within 'em ; 

All Bubbles, and the Rogues that skin *em," 

— and so forth, the natural anti-climax being that 
he loves nothing but his ** Charmer" at Salis- 
bury.^ In another, which is headed To Celia. — 
Occasioned by her apprehending her House 
would be broke open, and having an old Fellow to 
guard it, who sat up all Night, with a Gun vjithout 
any Ammunition^ and from which it had been 
concluded that the Miss Cradocks were their 
own landlords, Venus chides Cupid for neglect- 
ing to guard her favourite : 

1 Nevertheless, the late Mr. Frederick Locker Lampson, 
a good judge, contrived to include no fewer than four of 
Fielding's pieces in the Anthology known as Lyra Elegait- 
iiarum, 1867, pp. 106, 135, 136, 139. 

^Miscellanies, 1 743, i., 49. 



5 6 Henry Fielding 

" * Come tell me, Urchin, tell no lies ; 
Where was you hid, in Vince's eyes ? 
Did your fair Bennefs Brest importune ? 
(I know you dearly love a fortune.) ' 
Poor Cupid now began to whine ; 
< Mamma, it was no Fault of mine. 
I in a Dimple lay perdue^ 
That little Guard-Room chose by you. 
A hundred Loves (all arm'd) did grace 
The Beauties of her Neck and Face ; 
Thence, by a Sigh I dispossest, 
Was blown to Harry Fielding'' s Breast ; 
Where I was forc'd all Night to stay, 
Because I could not find my Way. 
But did Mamma know there what Work 
I've made, how acted like a Turk ; 
What Pains, what Torment he endures, 
Which no Physician ever cures. 
She would forgive.' The Goddess smil'd. 
And gently chuck'd her wicked Child, 
Bid him go back, and take more Care, 
And give her Service to the Fair." ^ 

Swift, in his Rhapsody on Poetry, 1773, cou- 
pled Fielding with Leonard Welsted as an in- 
stance of sinking in verse. But the foregoing, 
which he could not have seen, is scarcely, if at 
all, inferior to his own Birthday Poems to Stella.^ 

"i^ Miscellanies J 1743, i. 58. 

2 Swift afterward substituted " the laureate [Cibber] " for 
" Fielding," and appears to have changed his mind as to the 



A Memoir 57 

The history of Fielding's marriage rests so ex- 
clusively upon the statements of Arthur Murphy 
that it will be well to quote his words in full : 

'* Mr. Fielding had not been long a writer for 
the stage, when he married Miss Craddock [sic]^ 
a beauty from Salisbury. About that time his 
mother dying, a moderate estate, at Stower in 
Dorsetshire devolved to him. To that place he 
retired with his wife, on whom he doated, with 
a resolution to bid adieu to all the follies and in- 
temperances to which he had addicted himself in 
the career of a town-life. But unfortunately a 
kind of family-pride here gained an ascendant 
over him ; and he began immediately to vie in 
splendour with the neighbouring country squires. 
With an estate not much above two hundred 
pounds a-year, and his wife's fortune, which did 
not exceed fifteen hundred pounds, he encum- 
bered himself with a large retinue of servants, all 
clad in costly yellow liveries. For their master's 
honour, these people could not descend so low 
as to be careful in their apparel, but, in a month 
or two, were unfit to be seen ; the squire's dig- 

latter's merits. " I can assure Mr. Fieldi^g-^^ says Mrs. 
Pilkington in the third and last volume of her Memoirs, 
(1754), *< the Dean had a high opinion of his Wit, which 
must be a Pleasure to him, as no Man was ever better quali- 
fied to judge, possessing it so eminently himself.'* 



5 8 Henry Fielding 

nity required that they should be newly-equipped ; 
and his chief pleasure consisted in society and 
convivial mirth, hospitality threw open his doors, 
and, in less than three years, entertainments, 
hounds and horses, entirely devoured a little 
patrimony, which, had it been managed with 
economy, might have secured to him a state of 
independence for the rest of his life, etc/'^ 

This passage, which has played a conspicuous 
part in all biographies of Fielding, was very 
carefully sifted by Mr. Keightley, who came to 
the conclusion that it was a '' mere tissue of 
error and inconsistency."^ Without going to 
this length, we must admit that it is manifestly 
incorrect in many respects. If Fielding married 
in 1735 (though, as already pointed out, he may 
have married earlier, and retired to the country 
upon the failure of the Universal Gallant)^ he is 
certainly inaccurately described as '* not having 
been long a writer for the stage," since writing 
for the stage had been his chief occupation for 
seven years. Then again his mother had died as 
far back as April 10, 1718, when he was a boy of 
eleven ; and if he had inherited anything from 
her, he had probably been in the enjoyment of it 

1 Works f 1762,1. 27-8. 

* Some of Mr. Keightley's criticisms were anticipated by 
Watson. 



A Memoir 59 

ever since he came of age. Furthermore, the 
statement as to ** three years'' is at variance 
with the fact that, according to the dedication to 
the Universal Gallant^ he was still in London in 
February, 173^, and was back again managing 
the Haymarket in the first months of 1736. 
Murphy, however, may only mean that the 
^' estate " at East Stour was in his possession for 
three years. Mr. Keightley's other points — 
namely, that the ** tolerably respectable farm- 
house,'' in which he is supposed to have lived, 
was scarcely adapted to ** splendid entertain- 
ments," or ^' a large retinue of servants;'' and 
that, to be in strict accordance with the family 
arms, the liveries should have been not '* yellow," 
but white and blue — must be taken for what 
they are worth. ^ On the whole, the probability 
is, that Murphy's words were only the careless 
repetition of local tittle-tattle, of much of which 
as Captain Booth says pertinently in Amelia, 

1 Mr. Leslie Stephen suggests that this detail of the 
liveries is borrowed from the career of the Duchess of Cleve- 
land's husband, " Beau," or " Handsome " Fielding 
(d. 1712), who, among other absurdities, " hired a coach, 
and kept two footmen clothed in yellow." He was also re- 
ported to have been (like the novelist) a Justice of the 
Peace for Westminster. {Diet, of JVat, Biography^ vol. 
rviii. (1S89), Art. <* Robert Fielding.") 



6o Henry Fielding 

** the only basis is lying." The squires of the 
neighbourhood would naturally regard the dash- 
ing young gentleman from London with the same 
distrustful hostility that Addison's '* Tory Fox- 
hunter" exhibited to those who differed with 
him in politics. It would be remembered, be- 
sides, that the new-comer was the son of another 
and an earlier Fielding of less pretensions, and 
no real cordiality could ever have existed be- 
tween them. Indeed, it may be assumed that 
this was the case, for Booth's account of the op- 
position and ridicule which he — ^'a poor 
renter I " — encountered when he enlarged his 
farm and set up his coach has a distinct personal 
accent. That he was lavish, and lived beyond 
his means, is quite in accordance with his char- 
acter. The man who, as a Bow Street magis- 
trate, kept open house on a pittance, was not 
likely to be less lavish as a country gentleman, 
with ;^i 500 in his pocket, and newly married to 
a young and handsome wife. ** He would have 
wanted money," said Lady Mary, ** if his heredi- 
tary lands had been as extensive as his imagi- 
nation ; '' ^ and there can be little doubt that the 
rafters of the old farm by the Stour, with the 
great locust tree at the back, which is figured in 
Hutchins's History of Dorset, rang often to 
1 Letters y etc., 1861, ii. 283. 



A Memoir 6i 

hunting choruses, and that not seldom the 
** dusky Night rode down the Sky" over the 
prostrate forms of Harry Fielding's guests.^ But 
even £i 500, and (in spite of Murphy) it is by no 
means clear that he had anything more, could 
scarcely last forever. Whether his footmen 
wore yellow or not, a few brief months found 
him again in town. That he was able to rent 
a theatre may perhaps be accepted as proof that 
his profuse hospitalities had not completely ex- 
hausted his means. 

The moment was a favourable one for a fresh 
theatrical experiment. The stage-world was split 
up into factions, the players were disorganised, 
and everything seemed in confusion. Whether 
Fielding himself conceived the idea of making 
capital out of this state of things, or whether it 
was suggested to him by some of the company 

1 An interesting relic of the East Stour residence has re- 
cently been presented by Mr. Merthyr Guest (through Mr. 
R. A. Kinglake) to the Somersetshire Archaeological 
Society. It is an oak table of solid proportions, and bears 
on a brass plate the following inscription, emanating from a 
former owner : — *< This table belonged to Henry Fielding, 
Esq., novelist. He hunted from East Stour Farm, 17 18, 
and in three years dissipated his fortune keeping hounds." 
In 17 18, it may be observed. Fielding was a boy of eleven. 
Probably the whole of the latter sentence is nothing more 
than a distortion of Murphy. 



62 Henry Fielding 

who had acted Don Quixote in England, it is im- 
possible to say. In the first months of 1736, 
however, he took the little French Theatre in 
the Haymarket, and opened it with a company 
which he christened the *^ Great MoguFs Com- 
pany of Comedians/' who were further described 
as ** having dropped from the Clouds/' The 
** Great Mogul'* was a name sometimes given by 
playwrights to the elder Cibber ; but there is no 
reason for supposing that any allusion to him was 
intended on this occasion. The company, with the 
exception of Macklin, who was playing at Drury 
Lane, consisted chiefly of the actors in Don 
Quixote in England ; and the first piece was en- 
titled Pasquin : a Dramatick Satire on the Times : 
being the Rehearsal of Two Plays^ vi-{, a Comedy 
caird the Election, and a Tragedy calVd the Life 
and Death of Common-Sense, The form of this 
work, which belongs to the same class as Sheri- 
dan's Critic and Buckingham's Rehearsal, was 
probably determined by Fielding's past experi- 
ence of the public taste. His latest comedy had 
failed, and its predecessors had not been very 
successful. But his burlesques had met with a 
better reception, while the election episodes in 
Don Quixote had seemed to disclose a fresh field 
for the satire of contemporary manners. And in 
the satire of contemporary manners he felt his 



A Memoir 63 

strength lay. The success of Pasquin proved he 
had not miscalculated, for it ran more than forty 
nights^ drawing, if we may believe the unknown 
author of the life of Theophilus Gibber, numer- 
ous and enthusiastic audiences " from Grosvenor, 
Cavendish, Hanover, and all the other fashionable 
Squares, as also from Pall Mall, and the Inns of 
Courtr 1 

In regard to plot, the comedy which Pasquin 
contains scarcely deserves the name. It consists 
of a string of loosely-connected scenes, which 
depict the shameless political corruption of the 
Walpole era with a good deal of boldness and 
humour. The sole difference between the 
" Court party," represented by two Candidates 
with the Bunyan-like names of Lord Place and 
Colonel Promise, and the ** Country party," 
whose nominees are Sir Harry Fox-Chase and 
Squire Tankard, is that the former bribe openly, 
the latter indirectly. The Mayor, whose sym- 
pathies are with the ** Country Party" is finally 
induced by his wife to vote for and return the 
other side, although they are in a minority ; and 
the play is concluded by the precipitate marriage 
of his daughter with Colonel Promise. Mr. 
Fustian, the Tragic Author, who, with Mr. 
Sneerwell the Critic, is one of the spectators of 
> An Apology for the Life of Mr, The'' Gibber, I74i,p. 113, 



64 Henry Fielding 

the rehearsal, demurs to the abruptness with 
which this ingenious catastrophe is brought about, 
and inquires where the preliminary action, of 
which there is not the slightest evidence in the 
piece itself, has taken place. Thereupon Trap- 
wit, the Comic Author, replies as follows, in 
one of those passages which show that, whatever 
Fielding's dramatic limitations may have been he 
was at least a keen critic of stage practice : 

" Trapwit. Why, behind the Scenes, Sir. 
What, would you have every Thing brought upon 
the Stage ? I intend to bring ours to the Dignity 
of the French Stage ; and I have Horace's Ad- 
vice of my Side ; we have many Things both said 
and done in our Comedies, which might be 
better performed behind the Scenes : the French, 
you know, banish all Cruelty from their Stage ; 
and I don't see why we should bring on a Lady 
in ours, practising all manner of Cruelty upon her 
Lover : beside, Sir, we do not only produce it, 
but encourage it ; for I could name you some 
Comedies, if I would, where a Woman is brought 
in for four Acts together, behaving to a worthy 
Man in a Manner for which she almost deserves 
to be hang'd ; and in the Fifth, forsooth, she is 
rewarded with him for a Husband : Now, Sir, 
as I know this hits some Tastes, and am willing 
to oblige all, I have given every Lady a Latitude 



A Memoir 65 

of thinking mine has behaved in whatever Man- 
ner she vi^ould have her." 

The part of Lord Place in the Election after 
the first few nights, was taken by Gibber's daugh- 
ter, the notorious Mrs. Charlotte Charke, whose 
extraordinary Memoirs are among the curiosities 
of eighteenth-century literature, and whose ex- 
periences were as varied as those of any char- 
acter in fiction. She does not seem to have 
acted in the Life and Death of Common-Sense^ 
the rehearsal of which followed that of the 
Election, This is a burlesque of the Tom Thumb 
type, much of which is written in vigorous blank 
verse. Queen Common-Sense is conspired 
against by Firebrand, Priest of the Sun, by Law, 
and by Physic. Law is incensed because she 
has endeavoured to make his piebald jargon in- 
telligible ; Physic because she has preferred 
Water Gruel to all his drugs ; and Firebrand be- 
cause she would restrain the power of Priests. 
Some of the strokes must have gone home to 
those receptive hearers who, as one contempo- 
rary account informs us, '* were dull enough not 
only to think they contained Wit and Humour, 
but Truth also '' : 

** Queen Common- Sense, My Lord of Laiu^ I sent for 
you this Morning; 
I have a strange Petition given to me ; 



66 Henry Fielding 

Two Men, it seems, have lately been at Law 
For an Estate, which both of them have lost, 
And their Attorneys now divide between them. 

Law, Madam, these things will happen in the Law. 

Q, C, S, Will they, my Lord ? then better we had none : 
But I have also heard a sweet Bird sing, 
That Men, unable to discharge their Debts 
At a short Warning, being sued for them, 
Have, with both Power and Will their Debts to pay 
Lain all their Lives in Prison for their Costs. 

Law, That may perhaps be some poor Person's Case, 
Too mean to entertain your Royal Ear. 

Q, C, S. My Lord, while I am Queen I shall not think 
One Man too mean, or poor, to be redress'd ; 
Moreover, Lord, I am inform'd your Laws 
Are grown so large, and daily yet encrease, 
That the great Age of old Methusalem 
"Would scarce suffice to read your Statutes out." 

There is also much more than merely transi- 
tory satire in the speech of ** Firebrand'' to the 
Queen : 

" Firebrand, Ha ! do you doubt it ? nay, if you doubt 

that, 
I will prove nothing — But my zeal inspires me, 
And I will tell you, Madam, you yourself 
Are a most deadly Enemy to the Sun, 
And all his Priests have greatest Cause to wish 
You had been never born. 

Q, C. S. Ha ! say'st thou. Priest ? 
Then know I honour and adore the Sun ! 



A Memoir 67 

And when I see his Light, and feel his Warmth, 

I glow with flaming Gratitude toward him ; 

But know, I never will adore a Priest, 

Vv'ho wears Pride's Face beneath Religion's Mask. 

And makes a Pick-Lock of his Piety, 

To steal away the Liberty of Mankind. 

But while I live, I'll never give thee Power. 

Firebrand. Madam, our Power is not deriv'd from you. 
Nor any one : 'Twas sent us in a Box 
From the great Sun himself, and Carriage paid ; 
Phaeton brought it when he overturn'd 
The Chariot of the Sun into the Sea. 

O. C, S. Shew me the Instrument, and let me read it. 

Fireb. Madam, you cannot read it, for being thrown 
Into the Sea, the Water has so damaged it. 
That none but Priests could ever read it since." 

In the end, Firebrand stabs Common-Sense, 
but her Ghost frightens Ignorance off the Stage, 
upon which Sneervvell says — " I am glad you 
make Common-Sense get the better at last ; I 
was under terrible Apprehensions for your 
Moral." *^ Faith, Sir," says Fustian, ''this is 
almost the only Play where she has got the bet- 
ter lately." And so the piece closes. But it 
would be wrong to quit it without some reference 
to the numberless little touches by which, 
throughout the whole, the humours of dramatic 
fife behind the scenes are ironically depicted. 
The Comic Poet is arrested on his way from 



68 Henry Fielding 

^^ King's Coffee-House^'' and the claim being 
** for upwards of Four Pound," it is at first sup- 
posed that *^ he will hardly get Bail/' He is 
subsequently inquired after by a Gentlewoman in 
a Riding-Hood, whom he passes off as a Lady of 
Quality, but who, in reality, is bringing him a 
clean shirt. There are difficulties with one of 
the Ghosts, who has a *^ Church-yard Cough," 
and ** is so Lame he can hardly walk the Stage ;" 
while another comes to rehearsal without being 
properly floured, because the stage barber had 
gone to Drury Lane '^ to shave the Sultan in the 
New Entertainment." On the other hand, the 
Ghost of Queen Common-Sense appears before 
she is killed, and is with some difficulty persuaded 
that her action is premature. Part of '^ihe 
Mob" play truant to see a show in the park ; 
Law, straying without the playhouse passage is 
snapped up by a Lord Chief-Justice's Warrant ; 
and a Jew carries off one of the Maids of 
Honour. These little incidents, together with 
the unblushing realism of the Pots of Porter that 
are made to do duty for wine, and the extra two- 
pennyworth of Lightning that is ordered against 
the first night, are all in the spirit of that inimita- 
ble picture of the Strolling Actresses dressing in a 
Barn, which Hogarth gave to the world two 
years later, and which, very possibly, may have 



A Memoir 69 

borrowed some of its inspiration from Fielding's 
'* dramatic satire." 

There is every reason to suppose that the prof- 
its of Pasquin were far greater than those of any 
of its author's previous efforts. In a rare con- 
temporary caricature, preserved in the British 
Museum/ the *' Queen of Common-Sense'' is 
shown presenting '' Henry Fielding, Esq.," with 
a well-filled purse^ while to " Harlequin" (John 
Rich of Covent Garden) she extends a halter ; 
and in some doggerel lines underneath, reference 
is made to the ** show'rs of Gold " resulting from 
the piece. This, of course, might be no more 
than a poetical fiction ; but Fielding himself at- 
tests the pecuniary success of Pasquin m the 
Dedication to Tumble-Down Dick, and Mrs. 
Charke's statement in her Memoirs that her 
salary for acting the small part of Lord Place 
was four guineas a week, *' with an Indulgence 
in Point of Charges at her Benefit " by which 
she cleared sixty guineas,^ certainly points to a 
prosperous exchequer. Fielding's own benefit, 
as appears from the curious ticket attributed to 
Hogarth and facsimiled by A. M. Ireland, took 
place on April 25, but we have no record of the 
amount of his gains. Mrs. Charke farther says 

^ Political and Personal Satires, No. 2283. 
^ A Narrative, etc., 1755, pp. 63, 64. 



70 Henry Fielding 

that ^* soon after Pasquin began to droop," 
Fielding produced Lillo's Fatal Curiosity in 
which she acted Agnes. This tragedy, founded 
on a Cornish story, is one of remarkable power 
and passion ; but upon its first appearance it 
made little impression, although in the succeed- 
ing year it was acted to greater advantage in 
combination with another satirical medley by 
Fielding, the Historical Register for the Year 1736. 
Like most sequels, the Historical Register had 
neither the vogue nor the wit of its predecessor. 
It was only half as long, and it was even more 
disconnected in character. '' Harmonious Gib- 
ber," as Swift calls him, whose *^ preposterous 
Odes " had already been ridiculed in Pasquin and 
the Author's Farce, was once more brought on 
the stage as Ground-Ivy, for his alterations of 
Shakespeare ; and under the name of Pistol, 
Theophilus Gibber is made to refer to the con- 
tention between his second wife, Arne's sister, 
and Mrs. Glive, for the honour of playing 
^* Polly" in the Beggar's Opera, a play-house 
feud which at the latter end of 1736 had en- 
gaged '*the Town" almost as seriously as the 
earlier rivalry of Faustina and Guzzoni. This 
continued raillery of the Gibbers is, as Fielding 
himself seems to have felt, a *' Jest a little 
over-acted ; '' but there is one scene in the piece 



A Memoir 71 

of undeniable freshness and humour, to wit, that 
in which Cock, the famous salesman of the 
Piazzas — the George Robins of his day — is 
brought on the stage as Mr. Auctioneer Hen (a 
part taken by Mrs. Charke). His wares, *' col- 
lected by the indefatigable Pains of that cele- 
brated Virtuoso, Peter Humdrum, Esq.,'' include 
such desirable items as '* curious Remnants of 
Political Honesty," ^^ delicate Pieces of Patriot- 
ism," Modesty (which does not obtain a bid), 
Courage, Wit, and *'a very neat clear Con- 
science" of great capacity, ** which has been 
worn by a Judge, and a Bishop." The '*Car- 
dinal Virtues " are then put up, and eighteen- 
pence is bid for them. But after they have been 
knocked down at this extravagant sum, the buyer 
complains that he had understood the auctioneer 
to say **a Cardinal's Virtues," and that the lot 
he has purchased includes ''Temperance and 
Chastity, and a Pack of Stuff that he would not 
give three Farthings for." The whole of this 
scene is *' admirable fooling ; " and it was after- 
wards impudently stolen by Theophilus Cibber 
for his farce of the Auction. The Historical 
Register concludes with a dialogue between 
Quidam, in whom the audience recognised Sir 
Robert Walpole, and four patriots, to whom he 
gives a purse which has an instantaneous effect 



72 Henry Fielding 

upon their opinions. All five then go off danc- 
ing to Quidam's fiddle ; and it is explained that 
they have holes in their pockets through which 
the money will fall as they dance, enabling the 
donor to pick it all up again, **and so not lose 
one Half-penny by his Generosity/' 

The frank effrontery of satire like the fore- 
going had by this time begun to attract the at- 
tention of the Ministry, whose withers had 
already been sharply wrung by Pasquin ; and it 
has been conjectured that the ballet of Quidam 
and the Patriots played no sm.all part in precipi- 
tating the famous ** Licensing Act,'' which was 
passed a few weeks afterwards. Like the mar- 
riage which succeeded the funeral of Hamlet's 
father, it certainly *' followed hard upon." But 
the reformation of the stage had already been 
contemplated by the Legislature ; and two years 
before. Sir John Barnard had brought in a bill 
** to restrain the number of houses for playing of 
Interludes, and for the better regulating of com- 
mon Players of Interludes." This, however, had 
been abandoned, because it was proposed to add 
a clause enlarging the power of the Lord Cham- 
berlain in licensing plays, an addition to which 
the introducer of the measure made strong objec- 
tion. He thought the power of the Lord Cham- 
berlain already too great, and in support of his 



A Memoir 73 

argument he instanced its wanton exercise in the 
case of Gay's Polly, the representation of which 
had been suddenly prohibited a few years earlier. 
But Pasquin and the Register brought the question 
of dramatic lawlessness again to the front, and a 
bill was hurriedly drawn, one effect of which was 
to revive the very provision that Sir John Bar- 
nard had opposed. The history of this affair is 
exceedingly obscure, and in all probability it has 
never been completely revealed. The received 
or authorised version is to be found in Coxe's 
Life of Walpole. After dwelling on the offence 
given to the Government by Pasquin, the writer 
goes on to say that Giffard, the manager of 
Goodman's Fields, brought Walpole a farce 
called The Golden Rump, which had been pro- 
posed for exhibition. Whether he did this to ex- 
tort money, or to ask advice, is not clear. In 
either case, Walpole is said to have '^ paid the 
profits which might have accrued from the per- 
formance, and detained the copy." He then 
made a compendious selection of the treasonable 
and profane passages it contained. These he 
submitted to independent members of both parties, 
and afterwards read them in the House itself. 
The result was that by way of amendment to the 
** Vagrant Act " of Anne's reign, a bill was pre- 
pared limiting the number of theatres, and com- 



74 Henry Fielding 

pelling all dramatic writers to obtain a license 
from the Lord Chamberlain. Such is Coxe's 
account ; but notwithstanding its circumstantial 
character, it has been insinuated in the sham 
memoirs of the younger Gibber, and it is plainly 
asserted in the Rambler s Ma^a\ine for 1787, that 
certain preliminary details have been conveniently 
suppressed. It is alleged that Walpole himself 
caused the farce in question to be written, and to 
be offered to Giffard, for the purpose of introduc- 
ing his scheme of reform ; and the suggestion is 
not without a certain remote plausibility. As 
may be guessed, however, The Golden Rump 
cannot be appealed to. It was never printed, 
although its title is identical with that of a cari- 
cature published in March, 1737, and fully de- 
scribed in the Gentleman's Magazine for that 
month. If the play at all resembled the design, 
it must have been obscene and scurrilous in the 
extreme.''^ 

1 Horace Walpole, in his Memoirs of the Last Ten Years 
of the Reign of George //,, says (vol. i., p. 12), ** I have in 
my possession the imperfect copy of this piece as I found it 
among my father's papers after his death." He calls it 
Fielding's ; but no importance can be attached to the state- 
ment. There is a copy of the caricature in the British 
Museum Print Room (Political and Personal Satires, 
No. 2327). 



A Memoir 75 

Meanwhile, the new bill, to which it had given 
rise, passed rapidly through both Houses. Re- 
port speaks of animated discussions and warm 
opposition. But there are no traces of any di- 
visions, or petitions against it, and the only speech 
which has survived is the very elaborate and care- 
ful oration delivered in the Upper House by Lord 
Chesterfield. The '^second Cicero" — as Syl- 
vanus Urban styles him — opposed the bill upon 
the ground that it would affect the liberty of the 
press ; and that it was practically a tax upon the 
chief property of men of letters, their wit — a 
** precarious dependence'' — which (he thanked 
God) my Lords were not obliged to rely upon. 
He dwelt also upon the value of the stage as a 
fearless censor of vice and folly ; and he quoted 
with excellent effect but doubtful accuracy the 
famous answer of the Prince of Conti [Cond6] to 
Moliere [Louis XIV.] when Tar/a/^ was inter- 
dicted at the instance of M. de Lamoignon: 
** It is true, Moliere, Harlequin ridicules 
Heaven, and exposes religion; but you have 
done much worse — you have ridiculed the first 
minister of religion.'' This, although not directly 
advanced for the purpose, really indicated the 
head and front of Fielding's offending in Pasquin 
and the Historical Register, and although in Lord 
Chesterfield's speech the former is ironically con- 



^6 Henry Fielding 

demned, it may well be that Fielding, whose Don 
Quixote had been dedicated to his Lordship, was 
the wire-puller in this case, and supplied this 
very illustration. At all events it is entirely in 
the spirit of Firebrand's words in Pasquin : 

** Speak boldly ; by the Powers I serve, I swear 
You speak in Safety, even tho' you speak 
Against the Gods, provided that you speak 
Not against Priests." 

But the feeling of Parliament in favour of drastic 
legislation was even stronger than the persuasive 
periods of Chesterfield, and on the 21st of June, 
1737, the bill received the royal assent. 

With its passing Fielding's career as a dramatic 
author practically closed. In his dedication of 
the Historical Register to " the Publick," he had 
spoken of his desire to beautify and enlarge his 
little theatre, and to procure a better company of 
actors; and he had added — *' If Nature hath 
given me any Talents at ridiculing Vice and Im- 
posture, I shall not be indolent, nor afraid of ex- 
erting them, while the Liberty of the Press and 
Stage subsists, that is to say, while we have any 
Liberty left among us.'' To all these projects 
the '' Licensing Act " effectively put an end ; and 
the only other plays from his pen which were 
produced subsequently to this date were the 



A Memoir 77 

Wedding Day, 1743, and the posthumous Good- 
Natured Man, 1779, both of which, as is plain 
from the Preface to the Miscellanies, were among 
his earliest attempts. In the little farce of Af/55 
Lucy in Tcivn, 1742, he had, he says but ''a very 
small Share." Besides these, there are three 
hasty and flimsy pieces which belong to the early 
part of 1737. The first of these, Tumble-Down 
Dick; or J Phaeton in the Suds, was a dramatic 
sketch in ridicule of the unmeaning Entertain- 
ments and Harlequinades of John Rich at Co- 
vent Garden. This was ironically dedicated to 
Rich, under his stage name of *' John Lun," and 
from the dedication it appears that Rich had 
brought out an unsuccessful satire on Pasquin 
called Marforio. The other two were Eurydice, 
a profane and pointless farce, afterwards printed 
by its author (in anticipation of Beaumarchais)^ 
*'as it was d — mned at the Theatre-Royal in Drury 
Lane ; " and a few detached scenes in which, 
under title of Eurydice Hiss'd; or, a Word to the 
Wise, its untoward fate was attributed to the 
** frail Promise of uncertain Friends.'' But even 
in these careless and half-considered productions 
there are happy strokes ; and one scarcely looks 

^ The Bar bier de Seville was printed in 1775, as " repre- 
sentee et tombee sur le Thidtre de la Coinedie-Frangaise,'''' 



78 Henry Fielding 

to find such nervous and sensible lines in a mere 
a propos as these from Eurydice Hissed : 

" Yet grant it shou'd succeed, grant that by Chance, 
Or by the Whim and Madness of the Town, 
A Farce without Contrivance, without Sense 
Should run to the Astonishment of Mankind ; 
Think how you will be read in After-times, 
When Friends are not, and the impartial Judge 
Shall with the meanest Scribbler rank your Name ; 
Who would not rather wish a Butler's fame, 
Distress'd and poor in every thing but Merit, 
Than be the blundering Laureat to a Court ? '* 

Self-accusatory passages such as this — and 
there are others like it — indicate a higher ideal 
of dramatic writing than Fielding is held to have 
attained, and probably the key to them is to be 
found in that reaction of better judgment which 
seems invariably to have followed his most reck- 
less efforts. It was a part of his sanguine and 
impulsive nature to be as easily persuaded that 
his work was worthless as that it was excellent. 
'* When/' says Murphy, ^* he was not under the 
immediate urgency of want, they, who were in- 
timate with him, are ready to aver that he had a 
mind greatly superior to anything mean or little ; 
when his finances were exhausted, he was not 
the most elegant in his choice of the means to 
redress himself, and he would instantly exhibit a 



A Memoir 79 

farce or puppet-shew in the Haymarket theatre, 
which was wholly inconsistent with the profes- 
sion he had embarked in."^ The quotation dis- 
plays all Murphy's loose and negligent way of 
dealing with his facts ; for, with the exception of 
Miz^ Lucy in Town, which can scarcely be ranked 
among his works at all, there is absolutely no 
trace of Fielding's having exhibited either *' pup- 
pet-shew " or *^ farce " after seriously adopting 
the law as a profession, nor does there appear to 
have been much acting at the Haymarket for 
some time after his management had closed in 
1737. Still, his superficial characteristics, which 
do not depend so much upon Murphy as upon 
those *' who were intimate with him/' are prob- 
ably accurately described, and they sufficiently 
account for many of the obvious discordances of 
his work and life. That he was fully conscious 
of something higher than his actual achievement 
as a dramatist is clear from his own observation 
in later life, ^*that he left off writing for the 
stage, when he ought to have begun ; " — an ut- 
terance which (we suspect) has prompted not a 
little profitless speculation as to whether, if he 
had continued to write plays, they would have 
been equal to, or worse than, his novels. The 
discussion would be highly interesting, if there 

1 Works, 1762, i. 47. 



8o Henry Fielding 

were the slightest chance that it could be at- 
tended with any satisfactory result. But the 
truth is, that the very materials are wanting. 
Fielding *Meft off writing for the stage" when 
he was under thirty ; Tom Jones was published 
in 1749, when he was more than forty. His 
plays were written in haste ; his novels at leisure, 
and when, for the most part^ he was relieved from 
that ** immediate urgency of want," which, ac- 
cording to Murphy, characterised his younger 
days. If — as has been suggested — we could 
compare a novel written at thirty with a play of 
the same date, or a play written at forty with 
Tom Jones, the comparison might be instructive, 
although even then considerable allowances 
would have to be made for the essential differ- 
ence between plays and novels. But, as we can- 
not make such a comparison, further inquiry is 
simply waste of time. All we can safely affirm is, 
that the plays of Fielding's youth did not equal 
the fictions of his maturity ; and that, of those 
plays, the comedies were less successful than the 
farces and burlesques. Among other reasons for 
this latter difference one chiefly may be given : 
— that in the comedies he sought to reproduce 
the artificial world of Congreve andWycherly, 
while in the burlesques and farces he depicted 
the world in which he lived. 



CHAPTER III 

Becomes a student of the Middle Temple, I November, 
1737; law and letters; the Champion^ 1739-40; its 
themes ; attack in Gibber's Apology ; reply thereto ; 
Tryal of Colley Cibber^ Comedian ; Fielding and Gibber ; 
called to the Bar, 20 June, 1740; minor writings ; travels 
Western Gircuit ; Richardson's Fa7nela ; Joseph AndrezuSy 
February, 1742; Parson Abraham Adams; other person- 
ages of the book ; details and descriptions ; personal por- 
traiture ; plan of novel; Richardson and Gray; assign- 
ment to Millar. 

T^HE Historical Register and Eur/dice Hiss'd 
^ were published together in June, 1737. By 
this time the ^* Licensing Act " was passed, and 
the ''Grand Mogul's Company" dispersed for- 
ever. Fielding was now in his thirty-first year, 
with a wife and probably a daughter depending 
on him for support. In the absence of any pros- 
pect that he would be able to secure a mainte- 
nance as a dramatic writer, he seems to have 
decided, in spite of his comparatively advanced 
age, to revert to the profession for which he had 
originally been intended, and to qualify himself 
for the Bar. Accordingly, at the close of the 



82 Henry Fielding 

year, he became a student of the Middle Temple, 
and the books of that society contain the follow- 
ing record of his admission : ^ 

[^74 G] I Nov"'' 1757. 

Henricus Fielding, de East Stoiir in Com Dorset 
Ar, filius et hceres apparens Brig: Gen^'^: Ed- 
munai Fielding admissus est in Socielatem Medii 
Templi Lond specialiter et obligatur una cum etc. 
Et dat pro fine 4, o. o. 

It may be noted, as Mr. Keightley has already 
observed, that Fielding is described in this entry 
as of East Stour, *^ which would seem to indicate 
that he still retained his property at that place ; '' 
and further, that his father is spoken of as a 
^'brigadier-general,'' whereas (according to the 
Gentleman^s Magazine) he had been made a 
major-general in December, 1735. Of discrep- 
ancies like these it is idle to attempt any expla- 
nation. But, if Murphy is to be believed, Field- 
ing devoted himself henceforth with commendable 
assiduity to the study of law. The old irregu- 
larity of life, it is alleged, occasionally asserted 
itself, though without checking the energy of his 
application. '^ This,'' says his first biographer, 
** prevailed in him to such a degree, that he has 
been frequently known by his intimates, to retire 

1 This differs slightly from previous transcripts, having 
been verified at the Middle Temple. 



A Memoir 83 

late at night from a tavern to his chambers, and 
there read and make extracts from the most ab- 
struse authors, for several hours before he went 
to bed ; so powerful were the vigour of his con- 
stitution and the activity of his mind." It is to 
this passage, no doubt, that we owe the pictur- 
esque wet towel and inked ruffles with which 
Thackeray has decorated him in chapter xxix. of 
Pendennis ; and, in all probability, a good deal of 
graphic writing from less able pens respecting his 
ways as a Templar. In point of fact, nothing is 
known with certainty respecting his life at this 
period, and what it would really concern us to 
learn — namely, whether by ^* chambers" it is to 
be understood that he was living alone, and, if so, 
where Mrs. Fielding was at the time of these pro- 
tracted vigils — Murphy has not told us. Per- 
haps she was safe all the while at East Stour, or 
with her sisters at Salisbury. Having no precise 
information, however, it can only be recorded, 
that, in spite of the fitful outbreaks above re- 
ferred to, Fielding applied himself to the study 
of his profession with all the vigour of a man who 
has to make up for lost time ; and that, when on 
the 20th of June, 1740, the day came for his being 
*' called," he was very fairly equipped with legal 
knowledge. That he had also made many friends 
among his colleagues of Westminster Hall is 



84 Henry Fielding 

manifest from the number of lawyers who figure 
in the subscription list of the Miscellanies. 

To what extent he was occupied by literary 
work during his probationary period it is difficult 
to say. Murphy speaks vaguely of '^a large 
number of fugitive political tracts ; '' but unless 
the Essay on Conversation, advertised by Lawton 
Gilliver, in 1737, be the same as that afterwards 
reprinted in the Miscellanies, there is no positive 
record of anything until the issue of True Great- 
ness, an epistle to George Doddington, in Janu- 
ary, 1 741, though he may, of course, have writ- 
ten much anonymously. Am.ong newspapers, 
the one Murphy had in mind was probably the 
Champion, the first number of which is dated 
November 15, 1739, two years after his admis- 
sion to the Middle Temple as a student. On 
the whole, it seems most likely, as Mr. Keight- 
ley conjectures, that his chief occupation in the 
interval was studying law, and that he must have 
been living upon the residue of his wife's fortune 
or his own means, in which case the establish- 
ment of the above periodical may mark the ex- 
haustion of his resources. 

The Champion is a paper on the model of the 
elder essayists. It was issued, like the Taller, 
on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. 
Murphy says that Fielding's part in it cannot 



A Memoir 85 

now be ascertained; but as the ^'Advertise- 
ment" to the edition in two volumes of 1741 
states expressly that the papers signed C. and L. 
are the ** Work of one Hand," and as a number of 
those signed C. are unmistakably Fielding's, it is 
hard to discover where the difficulty lies. The 
papers signed C. and L. are by far the most 
numerous, the majority of the remainder being 
distinguished by two stars, or the signature 
*' Lilbourne." These are understood to have 
been from the pen of James Ralph, whose poem 
of Night gave rise to a stinging couplet in the 
Dunciad, but who was nevertheless a man of 
parts, and an industrious writer. As will be re- 
membered, he had contributed a prologue to 
the Temple Beau, so that his association with 
Fielding must have been of some standing. Be- 
sides Ralph's essays in the Champion, he was 
mainly responsible for the Index to the Times 
which accompanied each number, and consisted 
of a series of brief paragraphs on current topics, 
or the last new book. In this way Glover's 
London, Boyse's Deity, Somervile's Hobbinol, 
Lillo's Elmeric, Dyer's Ruins of Rome, and 
other of the very minor poets of the day, were 
commented upon. These notes and notices, 
however, were only a subordinate feature of the 
Champion, which, like its predecessors, con- 



86 Henry Fielding 

sisted chiefly of essays and allegories, social, 
moral, and political, the writers of which were 
supposed to be members of an imaginary '* Vine- 
gar family," described in the initial paper. Of 
these the most prominent was Captain Hercules 
Vinegar, who took all questions relating to the 
Army, Militia, Trained-Bands, and *' fighting 
Part of the Kingdom." His father, Nehemiah 
Vinegar, presided over history and politics ; his 
uncle, Counsellor Vinegar, over law and judica- 
ture ; and Dr. John Vinegar his cousin, over 
medicine and natural philosophy. To others of 
the family — including Mrs. John Vinegar, who 
was charged with domestic affairs — were allotted 
classic literature, poetry and the Drama, and 
fashion. This elaborate scheme was not very 
strictly adhered to, and the chief writer of the 
group is Captain Hercules. 

Shorn of the contemporary interest which 
formed the chief element of its success when it 
was first published, it must be admitted that, in 
the present year of grace, the Champion is hard 
reading. A cloud of lassitude — a sense of un- 
congenial task-work — broods heavily over Field- 
ing's contributions, except the one or two in 
which he is quickened into animation by his an- 
tagonism to Gibber ; and although, with our 
knowledge of his after achievements, it is possi- 



A Memoir 87 

ble to trace some indications of his yet un- 
revealed powers, in the absence of such knowl- 
edge it would be difficult to distinguish the 
Champion from the hundred-and-one forgotten 
imitators of the Spectator and Tatler, whose 
names have been so patiently chronicled by Dr. 
Nathan Drake. There is, indeed, a certain 
obvious humour in the account of Captain 
Vinegar's famous club, which he had inherited 
from Hercules, and which had the enviable 
property of falling of itself upon any knave in 
company, and there is a dash of the Tom Jones 
manner in the noisy activity of that excellent 
housewife Mrs. Joan. Some of the lighter 
papers, such as the one upon the ^^ Art of Puff- 
ing," are amusing enough ; and of the visions, 
that which is based upon Lucian, and represents 
Charon as stripping his freight of all their 
superfluous incumbrances in order to lighten his 
boat, has a double interest, since it contains 
references not only to Cibber, but also (though 
this appears to have been hitherto overlooked) to 
Fielding himself. The ** tall Man," who at 
Mercury's request strips off his '" old Grey Coat 
with great Readiness," but refuses to part with 
*' half his Chin," which the shepherd of souls re- 
gards as false^ is clearly intended for the writer 
of the paper, even v/ithout the confirmation 



88 Henry Fielding 

afforded by the subsequent allusions "to his con- 
nection with the stage.^ His '^ length of chin and 
nose/' sufficiently apparent in his portrait, was a 
favourite theme for contemporary personalities.^ 
Of the moral essays, the most remarkable are a 
set of four papers, entitled An Apology for the 
Clergy, which may perhaps be regarded as a set- 
off against the sarcasms of Pasquin on priest- 
craft. They depict, with a great deal of knowl- 
edge and discrimination, the pattern priest as 
Fielding conceived him. To these may be 
linked an earlier picture, taken from life, of a 
country parson who^ in his simple and dignified 
surroundings^ even more closely resembles the 
Vicar of Wakefield than Mr. Abraham Adams. 
Some of the more general articles contain happy 
passages. In one there is an admirable parody 

1 Champion f 24 May, 1740. 

2 The former peculiarity gives rise to a curious and not 
very acute passage in one of Charlotte Bronte's letters : — 
" In the cynical prominence of the under jaw, one reads 
the man. It was the stamp of one who would never see 
his neighbours (especially his women neighbours) as they 
are^ but as they might be under the worst circumstances " 
{Life of Charlotte Bronte^ by Mrs. Gaskell, 1900, 565 n). 
Charlotte Bronte's attitude to Fielding was not as sym- 
pathetic as that of George Eliot. The author of Jane Eyre 
regarded Fielding's style as " arid," and deplored his views 
of life and human nature. 



A Memoir 89 

of the Norman-French jargon, which in those 
days added superfluous obscurity to legal utter- 
ances ; while another, on *' Charity," contains a 
forcible exposition of the inexpediency, as well 
as inhumanity, of imprisonment for debt. Refer- 
ences to contemporaries, the inevitable Gibber 
excepted, are few, and these seem to be mostly 
from the pen of Ralph. The following, from 
that of Fielding, is notable as being one of the 
earliest authoritative testimonies to the merits of 
Hogarth: "I esteem (says he) the ingenious 
Mr. Hogarth as one of the most useful Satyrists 
any Age hath produced. In his excellent Works 
you see the delusive Scene exposed with all the 
Force of Humour^ and, on casting your Eyes 
on another Picture, you behold the dreadful and 
fatal Consequence. I almost dare affirm that 
those two Works of his, which he calls the 
Rakes and the Harlot's Progress^ are calculated 
more to serve the Cause of Virtue, and for the 
Preservation of Mankind, than all the Folio's of 
Morality which have been ever written ; and a 
sober Family should no more be without them, 
than without the Whole Duty of Man in their 
House." ^ He returned to the same theme in the 
Preface to Joseph Andreivs with a still apter 
phrase of appreciation: — " He hath been thought 

1 Champion^ lo June, 1740. 



^6 Henry Fielding 

a vast Commendation of a Painter, to say his Fig- 
ures seem to breathe ; but surely, it is a much 
greater and nobler Applause, that they appear to 
think." 1 

When the Champion was rather more than a 
year old, Colley Gibber published his famous 
Apology, To the attacks made upon him by 
Fielding at different times he had hitherto printed 
no reply — perhaps he had no opportunity of do- 
ing so. But in his eighth chapter, when speak- 
ing of the causes which led to the Licensing Act, 
he takes occasion to refer to his assailant in 
terms which Fielding must have found exceed- 
ingly galling. He carefully abstained from 
mentioning his name, on the ground that it could 
do him no good, and was of no importance ; but 
he described him as '*a broken Wit,'' who had 
sought notoriety ** by raking the Channel " (i. e,, 

1 Hogarth acknowledged this compliment later by refer- 
ring to Fielding's Preface as a further explanation of the 
etching of Character and Caricaturas, 1745. Fielding oc- 
casionally sends his readers to Hogarth for the pictorial 
types of his characters. Bridget Allworthy, he tells us. re- 
sembled the starched prude in Morning {To??i Jones, Bk. i., 
ch. II); and Mrs. Partridge and Parson Thwackum have 
their originals in the Harlofs Progress, (Bk. ii., ch. 3 ; and 
Bk. iii., ch. 6.) It was Fielding, too, who said that the 
Enraged Musician was " enough to make a man deaf to 
look at" {Voyage to Lisbon, 1755, p. 50). 



A Memoir 91 

Kennel), and '* pelting his Superiors." He ac- 
cused him, with a scandalised gravity that is as 
edifying as Chesterfield's irony, of attacking 
*' Religion, Laws, Government, Priests, Judges, 
and Ministers." He called him, either in allu- 
sion to his stature, or his pseudonym in the 
Champion, a '' Cerculean Satyrist," a *' Dravjcan- 
sir in Wit" — *' who, to make his Poetical Fame 
immortal, like another Erostraius, set Fire to his 
Stage, by writing up to an Act of Parliament to 
demolish it. I shall not," he continues, *'give 
the particular Strokes of his Ingenuity a Chance 
to be remembered, by reciting them ; it may be 
enough to say, in general Terms, they were so 
openly flagrant, that the Wisdom of the Legisla- 
ture thought it high time, to take a proper No- 
tice of them." ^ 

Fielding was not the man to leave such a chal- 
lenge unanswered. In the Champion for April 
22, 1740, and two subsequent papers,^ he replied 
with a slashing criticism of the Apolog/, in which, 
after demonstrating that it must be written in 
English because it was written in no other lan- 
guage, he gravely proceeds to point out exam- 
ples of the author's superiority to grammar and 

> An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibbery Com- 
ediafiy 1740, p. 164. 
2 29 April and 6 May. 



92 Henry Fielding 

learning — and in general, subjects its pretentious 
and slip-shod style to a minute and highly detri- 
mental examination. In a further paper ^ he re- 
turns to the charge by a mock trial of one ** Col. 
ApoL'" (i. e., CoWey- Apology) , arraigning him for 
that, **not having the Fear of Grammar before 
his Eyes," he had committed an unpardonable as- 
sault upon his mother-tongue. Fielding's knowl- 
edge of legal forms and phraseology enabled him 
to make a happy parody of court procedure, and 
Mr. Lawrence says that this particular '^ jea 
d' esprit obtained great celebrity." But the hap- 
piest stroke in the controversy — as it seems to 
us — is one which escaped Mr. Lawrence, and 
occurs in the paper already referred to, where 
Charon and Mercury are shown denuding the 
luckless passengers by the Styx of their surplus 
impedimenta. Among the rest, approaches ''an 
elderly Gentleman with a Piece of withered 
Laurel on his Head." From a little book, which 
he is discovered (when stripped) to have bound 
close to his heart, and which bears the title of 
Love in a Riddle — an unsuccessful pastoral pro- 
duced by Gibber at Drury Lane in 1729 — it is 
clear that this personage is intended for none 
other than the Apologist, who, after many en- 
treaties, is finally compelled to part with his 
1 17 May. 



A Memoir 93 

treasure. ^^ I was surprised," continues Field- 
ing, '* to see him pass Examination with his Laurel 
on, and was assured by the Standers by, that 
Mercury would have taken it off, if he had seen 
it."i 

These attacks in the Champion do not appear 
to have received any direct response from Gibber. 
But they were reprinted in a rambling production 
issued from ^* Curll's chaste press " in 1740, and 
entitled the Tryal of Coller Cibber, Comedian, 
&c. At the end of this there is a short address 
to '* the Self-dubFd Captain Hercules Vinegar, 
alias Buffoon,'' to the effect that " the malevolent 
Flings exhibited by him and his Man Ralphs'' 
have been faithfully reproduced. Then comes 
the following curious and not very intelligible 
*^ Advertisement : " 

** If the Ingenious Henry Fielding, Esq. ; (Son 
of the Hon. Lieut. General Fielding, who upon 
his Return from his Travels entered himself of 
the Temple in order to study the Law, and 
married one of the pretty Miss Cradocks of Salis- 
bury) will own himself the Author of 18 strange 
Things called Tragical Comedies and Gomical 
Tragedies, lately advertised by J, Watts of Wild- 
Court, Printer, he shall be mentioned in Gapitals 
in the Third Edition of Mr. Gibber's Life, and 

* Champion f 24 May, 1740. 



94 Henry Fielding 

likewise be placed among the Poetx minores Dra- 
matici of the Present Age : Then will both his 
Name and Writings be remembered on Record in 
the immortal Poetical Register written by Mr. 
Giles Jacob." 

The *' poetical register" indicated was the 
book of that name, containing the Lives and 
Characteristics of the English Dramatic Poets,wh\ch 
Mr. Giles Jacob, an industrious literarj' hack, 
had issued in 1723. Mr. Lawrence is probably 
right in his supposition, based upon the forego- 
ing advertisement, that Fielding **had openly 
expressed resentment at being described by 
Gibber as * a broken wit/ without being men- 
tioned by name." He never seems to have wholly 
forgotten his animosity to the actor, to whom 
there are frequent references in Joseph Andrews; 
and, as late as 1749, he is still found harping on 
** the withered laurel" in a letter to Lyttelton.^ 
Even in his last work, Gibber's name is men- 
tioned. ^ The origin of this protracted feud is 
obscure ; but, apart from want of sympathy, it 
must probably be sought for in some early mis- 
understanding between the two in their capacities 

1 Phillimore's Memoirs, etc., of George, Lord Lyttelton^ 

i845» P- 337- 

2 Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, 1755, p. 195. 



A Memoir 95 

of manager and author. As regards Theoph- 
ilus Gibber, his desertion of Highmore was suf- 
ficient reason for the ridicule cast upon him in 
the Author's Farce and elsewhere. With Mrs. 
Charke, the Laureate's intractable and eccentric 
daughter, Fielding was naturally on better terms. 
She was, as already stated, a member of the 
Great Mogul's Gompany, and it is worth noting 
that some of the sarcasms in Pasquin against her 
father were put into the mouth of Lord Place, 
whose part was taken by this undutiful child. 
All things considered, both in this controversy 
and the later one with Pope, Gibber did not 
come off worst. His few hits were personal 
and unscrupulous, and they were probably far 
more deadly in their effects than any of the iron- 
ical attacks which his adversaries, on their part, 
directed against his poetical ineptitude or halting 
** parts of speech." Despite his superlative cox- 
combry and egotism, he was, moreover, a man of 
no mean abilities. His Careless Husband is a far 
better acting play than any of Fielding's, and his 
Apology, which even Johnson allowed to be 
** well-done/' is valuable in many respects, espe- 
cially for its account of the contemporary stage. 
In describing an actor or actress he had few 
equals — witness his skilful portrait of Nokes, 
and his admirably graphic vignette of Mrs. Ver- 



g6 Henry Fielding 

bruggen as that " finished Impertinent," Me- 
lantha, in Dryden's Marriage A-la-Mode, ^ 

The concluding paper in the collected edition 
of the Champion, published in 1741, is dated 
June 19, 1740. On the day following Fielding 
was called to the Bar by the benchers of the 
Middle Temple, and (says Mr. Lawrence) 
** chambers were assigned him in Pump Court.'' 
Stimultaneously with this, his regular connection 
with journalism appears to have ceased, although 
from his statement in the Preface to the Miscel- 
lanies, — that *'as long as from June, 1741," he 
had ** desisted from writing one Syllable in the 
Champion, or any other public Paper/' — it may 
perhaps be inferred that up to that date he con- 
tinued to contribute now and then. This, never- 
theless, is by no means clear. His last utterance 
in the published volumes^ is certainly in a sense 
valedictory, as it refers to the position acquired 
by the Champion, Q.nd the difficulty experienced 
in establishing it. Incidentally, it pays a high 
compliment to Pope, by speaking of '' the divine 
Translation of the Iliad, which he [Fielding] has 
lately with no Disadvantage to the Translator com- 
PARED with the Original," the point of the sen- 
tence so impressed by its typography, being ap- 

^An Apology y etc., 1740, pp. 85-7 and 99-100, 
2 12 June, 1740. 



A Memoir 97 

parently directed against those critics who had 
condemned Pope's work without the requisite 
knowleds^e of Greek. From the tenor of the 
rest of the essay it may, however, be concluded 
that the writer was taking leave of his enterprise ; 
and, according to a note by Bosw^ell,^ it seems 
that Mr. Reed of Staple Inn possessed documents 
which showed that Fielding at this juncture, prob- 
ably in anticipation of more lucrative legal duties, 
surrendered the reins to Ralph. The Champion 
continued to exist for some time longer ; indeed, 
it must be regarded as long-lived among the es- 
sayists, since the issue which contained its well- 
known criticism on Garrick is No. 45 ), and ap- 
peared late in 1742. But as far as can be ascer- 
tained, it never again attained the honours of a 
reprint. 

Although, after he was called to the Bar, 
Fielding practically relinquished periodical liter- 
ature, he does not seem to have entirely desisted 
from writing. In Sylvanus Urban's Register of 
Books, published during January, 1741, is ad- 
vertised the poem Of True Greatness afterwards 
included in the Miscellanies ; and the same au- 
thority announces the Vernoniad, an anonymous 
burlesque Epic prompted by Admiral Vernon's 
popular expedition against Porto Bello in 1739, 
1 Hill's Boszueirs Life of Johnson^ 1S87, i- ^^9* 



98 Henry Fielding 

^' with six Ships only." That Fielding was the 
author of the latter is sufficiently proved by his 
order to Mr. Nourse (printed in Roscoe's edi- 
tion), to deliver fifty copies to Mr. Chappel. 
Another sixpenny pamphlet, entitled The Oppo- 
sition, a Vision, issued in December of the same 
year, is enumerated by him, in the Preface to the 
Miscellanies, among the works he had published 
*' since the End of June, 1741 ;" and, provided 
it can be placed before this date, he may be cred- 
ited with a political sermon called the Crisis 
(1741), which is ascribed to him upon the author- 
ity of a writer in NichoFs Anecdotes, He may 
also, before **the End of June, 1 741," have writ- 
ten other things ; but it is clear from his Caveat 
in the above-mentioned ^' Preface,'' together 
with his complaint that '^ he had been very un- 
justly censured, as well on account of what he 
had not writ, as for what he had,'' that much 
more has been laid to his charge than he ever de- 
served. Among ascriptions of this kind may be 
mentioned the curious Apolog/ for the Life of 
Mr. The' Cibber, Comedian, 1740, which is 
described on its title-page as a proper sequel to 
the autobiography of the Laureate, in whose 
*' style and manner" it is said to be written. 
But, although this performance is evidently the 
work of some one well acquainted with the dra- 



A Memoir 99 

matic annals of the day, it is more than doubtful 
whether Fielding had any hand or part in it. In- 
deed, his own statement that ^' he never was, nor 
would be the Author of anonymous Scandal [the 
italics are ours] on the private History or Family 
of any Person whatever,''^ should be regarded as 
conclusive. 

During all this time he seems to have been 
steadily applying himself to the practice of his 
profession, if, indeed, that weary hope deferred 
which forms the usual probation of legal prefer- 
ment can properly be so described. As might be 
anticipated from his Salisbury connections, he 
travelled the Western Circuit ; and, according to 
Hutchins's Dorset^ he assiduously attended the 
Wiltshire sessions. He had many friends among 
his brethren of the Bar. His cousin, Henry 
Gould, who had been called in 1734, and who, 
like his grandfather, ultimately became a Judge, 
was also a member of the Middle Temple ; and 
he was familiar with Charles Pratt, afterwards 
Lord Camden, whom he may have known at 
Eton, but whom he certainly knew in his barrister 
days. It is probable, too, that he was ac- 
quainted with Lord Northington, then Robert 
Henly, whose name appears as a subscriber to 
the Miscellanies^ and who was once supposed to 
1 Miscellanies, 1743, i., xxviii. 

koTC 



loo Henry Fielding 

contend with Kettleby (another subscriber) for 
the honour of being the original of the drunken 
barrister in Hogarth's Midnight Modern Conver- 
sation, a picture which no doubt accurately rep- 
resents a good many of the festivals by which 
Henry Fielding relieved the tedium of compos- 
ing those MS. folio volumes on Crown or Crim- 
inal Law, which, after his death, reverted to his 
half-brother. Sir John. But towards the close of 
1741 he was engaged upon another work which 
has outweighed all his most laborious forensic 
efforts, and which will long remain an English 
classic. This was The History of the Adven- 
tures of Joseph Andrews, and of his Friend Mr. 
Abraham Adams, published by Andrew Millar, 
in February, 1742. 

In the same number, and at the same page of 
the Gentleman's Magazine which contains the 
advertisement of the Vernoniad, there is a refer- 
ence to a famous novel which had appeared in 
November, 1740, two months earlier, and had 
already attained an extraordinary popularity. 
'* Several Encomiums (says Mr. Urban) on a 
Series of Familiar Letters, published but last 
month, entitled Pamela or Virtue rewarded, came 
too late for this Magazine, and we believe there 
will be little Occasion for inserting them in our 
next ; because a Second Edition will then come 



A Memoir loi 

out to supply the Demands in the Country, it 
being judge-d in Town as great a Sign of Want 
of Curiosity not to have read Pamela, as not to 
have seen the French and Italian Dancers/' A 
second edition was in fact published in the fol- 
lowing month (February), to be speedily suc- 
ceeded by a third in March and a fourth in May. 
Dr. Sherlock (oddly misprinted by Mrs. Bar- 
bauld as *' Dr. Slocock ") extolled it from the 
pulpit ; and the great Mr. Pope was reported to 
have gone farther and declared that it would do 
more good than many sermons. Other admirers 
ranked it next to the Bible ; clergymen dedicated 
theological treaties to the author ; and '' even at 
Ranelagh " — says Richardson's biographer — 
** those who remember the publication say, that 
it was usual for ladies to hold up the volumes of 
Pamela to one another, to shew that they had 
got the book that every one was talking of."^ 
It is perhaps hypercritical to observe that Rane- 
lagh Gardens were not open until eighteen months 
after Mr. Rivington's duodecimos first made their 
appearance ; but it will be gathered from the tone 
of some of the foregoing commendations that 
its morality was a strong point with the new can- 
didate for literary fame ; and its leisurely title- 
page did indeed proclaim at large that it was 
^Richardson's Correspoyidence^ 1804, i., Iviii. 



I02 Henry Fielding 

** Published in order to cultivate the Principles 
of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the 
Youth of Both Sexes." Its author, Samuel 
Richardson was a middle-aged London printer, 
a vegetarian and w^ater-drinker, a worthy, domes- 
ticated, fussy, and highly-nervous little man. 
Delighting in female society, and accustomed to 
act as confidant and secretary for the young 
women of his acquaintance, it had been sug- 
gested to him by some bookseller friends that he 
should prepare a ^' little volume of Letters, in a 
common style, on such subjects as might be of 
use to those country readers, who were unable 
to indite for themselves.*"^ As Hogarth's Con- 
versation Pieces grew into his Progresses, so 
this project seems to have developed into Pamela, 
or Virtue Rewarded. The necessity for some 
connecting link between the letters suggested a 
story, and the story chosen was founded upon 
the actual experiences of a young servant girl, 
who, after victoriously resisting all the attempts 
made by her master to seduce her, ultimately 
obliged him to marry her. It is needless to give 
any account here of the minute and deliberate 
way in which Richardson filled in this outline. 
As one of his critics, D'Alembert^ has unanswer- 
ably said — *' La nature est bonne k imiter, mais 
1 Richardson's Correspondence, 1804, i., lii. 



A Memoir 103 

non pas jusqu'a Tennui," — and the author of 
Pamela has plainly disregarded this useful law. 
On the other hand, the tedium and elaboration 
of his style have tended, in these less leisurely 
days, to condemn his work to a neglect which it 
does not deserve. Few writers — it is a truism 
to say so — have excelled him in minute analysis 
of motive, and knowledge of the human heart. 
About the final morality of his heroine's long- 
drawn defence of her chastity it may, however, 
be permitted to doubt ; and, in comparing the 
book with Fielding's work, it should not be for- 
gotten that, irreproachable though it seemed to 
the author's admirers, good Dr. Watts com- 
plained (and with reason) of the indelicacy of 
some of the scenes. 

But, for the moment, we are more concerned 
with the effect which Pamela produced upon 
Henry Fielding, struggling w^ith that ** eternal 
want of pence, which vexes public men," and 
vaguely hoping for some profitable opening for 
powers which had not yet been satisfactorily ex- 
ercised. To his robust and masculine genius, 
never very nicely sensitive where the relations of 
the sexes are concerned, the strange conjunction 
of purity and precaution in Richardson's heroine 
was a thing unnatural, and a theme for inextinguish- 
able Homeric laughter. That Pamela, through all 



I04 Henry Fielding 

her trials, could really have cherished any affection 
for her unscrupulous admirer would seem to him 
a sentimental absurdity, and the unprecedented 
success of the book would sharpen his sense of 
its assailable side. Possibly, too, his acquaint- 
ance with Richardson, v/hom he knew personally, 
but with whom he could have had no genuine 
sympathy, disposed him against his work. In 
any case, the idea presently occurred to Fielding 
of depicting a young man in circumstances of simi- 
lar importunity at the hands of a dissolute woman of 
fashion. He took for his hero Pamela's brother, 
and by a malicious stroke of the pen turned the 
Mr. B. of Pamela into Squire Booby. But the 
process of invention speedily carried him into 
paths far beyond the mere parody of Richardson, 
and it is only in the first portion of the book that 
he really remembers his intention. After chapter 
X. the story follows its natural course, and there 
is little or nothing of Lady Booby, or her frus- 
trate amours. Indeed, the author does not even 
pretend to preserve congruity as regards his hero, 
for, in chapter v., he makes him tell his mistress 
that he has never been in love, while in chapter 
xi. we are informed that he had long been attached 
to the charming Fanny. Moreover, in the inter- 
vening letters which Joseph writes to his sister 
Pamela, he makes no reference to this long- 



A Memoir 105 

existent attachment, with which, one would 
think, she must have been perfectly familiar. 
These discrepancies all point, not so much to 
negligence on the part of the author, as to an un- 
conscious transformation of his plan. He no 
doubt found that mere ridicule of Richardson 
was insufficient to sustain the interest of any 
serious effort, and, besides, must have been 
secretly conscious that the ** Pamela" character- 
istics of his hero were artistically irreconcilable 
with the personal bravery and cudgel-playing at- 
tributes with which he had endowed him. Add 
to this that Mrs. Slipslop and Parson Adams — 
the latter especially — had begun to acquire an 
importance with their creator for which the ini- 
tial scheme had by no means provided ; and he 
finally seems to have disregarded his design, only 
returning to it in his last chapters in order to close 
his work with some appearance of consistency. 
The History of Joseph Andrews, it has been said, 
might well have dispensed with Lady Booby 
altogether, and yet, without her, not only this 
book, but Tom Jones and Amelia also, would 
probably have been lost to us. The accident 
which prompted three such performances cannot 
be honestly regretted. 

It was not without reason that Fielding added 
prominently to his title-page the name of Mr. 



io6 Henry Fielding 

Abraham Adams. If he is not the real hero of 
the book, he is undoubtedly the character whose 
fortunes the reader follows with the closest inter- 
est. Whether he is smoking his black and con- 
solatory pipe in the gallery of the inn, or losing 
his way while he meditates a passage of Greek, 
or groaning over the fatuities of the man-of- 
fashion in Leonora's story, or brandishing his fa- 
mous crabstick in defence of Fanny, he is always 
the same delightful mixture of benevolence and 
simplicity, of pedantry and credulity and igno- 
rance of the world. He is *' compact,'' to use 
Shakespeare's word, of the oddest contradictions, 
— the most diverting eccentricities. He has 
Aristotle's Politics at his finger's ends, but he 
knows nothing of the daily GuT^etteers ; he is per- 
fectly familiar with the Pillars of Hercules, but 
he has never even heard of the Levant. He 
travels to London to sell a collection of sermons 
which he has forgotten to carry with him ; and in 
a moment of excitement he tosses into the fire 
the copy of ^schylus which it has cost him years 
to transcribe. He gives irreproachable advice 
to Joseph on fortitude and resignation ; but he is 
overwhelmed with grief when his child is reported 
to be drowned. When he speaks upon faith and 
works, on marriage, on school discipline, he is 
weighty and sensible ; but he falls an easy victim 



A Memoir 107 

to the plausible professions of every rogue he 
meets, and is willing to believe in the principles 
of Mr. Peter Pounce, or the humanity of Parson 
Trulliber. Not all the discipline of hog's blood 
and cudgels and cold water to which he is sub- 
jected can deprive him of his native dignity ; and 
as he stands before us in the short great-coat 
under which his ragged cassock is continually 
making its uninvited appearance, with his old wig 
and battered hat, a clergyman whose social posi- 
tion is scarcely above that of a footman, and who 
supports a wife and six children upon a cure of 
twenty-three pounds a year, which his outspoken 
honesty is continually jeopardising, he is a far 
finer figure than Pamela in her coach-and-six, or 
Bellarmine in his cinnamon velvet. If not, as 
Mr. Lawrence says, with exaggerated enthusi- 
asm, *^the grandest delineation of a pattern 
priest which the world has yet seen," he is as- 
suredly a noble example of primitive goodness 
and practical Christianity. It is not impossible 
— as Mr. Forster and Mr. Keightley have sug- 
gested — that Goldsmith borrowed some of his 
characteristics for Dr. Primrose, and it has been 
pointed out that Sterne remembered him in more 
than one page of Tristram Shandy. 

Next to Parson Adams, perhaps the best char- 
acter in Joseph Andrews — though of an entirely 



io8 Henry Fielding 

different type — is Lady Booby's ^* Waiting- 
Gentlewoman/' the excellent Mrs. Slipslop. 
Her sensitive dignity, her easy changes from 
servility to insolence, her sensuality, her in- 
imitably distorted vocabulary, which Sheridan 
borrowed for Mrs. Malaprop, and Dickens 
modified for Mrs. Gamp, are all peculiarities 
which make up a personification of the richest 
humour and the most life-like reality. Mr. 
Peter Pounce, too, with his " scoundrel maxims," 
as disclosed in that remarkable dialogue which 
is said to be '* better worth reading than all the 
Works of Colley Cibber,''' and in which charity is 
defined as consisting rather in a disposition to 
relieve distress than in an actual act of relief; 
Parson Trulliber with his hogs, his greediness, 
and his willingness to prove his Christianity by 
fisticuffs ; shrewish Mrs. Tow-wouse with her 
scold's tongue, and her erring but perfectly sub- 
jugated husband, — these again are portraits 
finished with admirable spirit and fidelity. An- 
drews himself, and his blushing sweetheart, do 
not lend themselves so readily to humorous art. 
Nevertheless the former, when freed from the 
wiles of Lady Booby, is by no means a despi- 
cable hero, and Fanny is a sufficiently fresh and 
blooming heroine. The characters of Pamela 
and Mr. Booby are fairly preserved from the 



A Memoir 109 

pages of their original inventor. But when 
Fielding makes Parson Adams rebuke the pair 
for laughing in church at Joseph's wedding, and 
puts into the lady's mouth a sententious little 
speech upon her altered position in life, he is 
adding some ironical touches which Richardson 
would certainly have omitted. 

No selection of personages, however, even of 
the most detailed and particular description, can 
convey any real impression of the mingled irony 
and insight, the wit and satire, the genial but 
perfectly remorseless revelation of human springs 
of action, which distinguish scene after scene of 
the book. Nothing, for example, can be more 
admirable than the different manifestations of 
meanness which take place among the travellers 
of the stage-coach, in the oft-quoted chapter 
where Joseph, having been robbed of everything, 
lies naked and bleeding in the ditch. There is 
Miss Grave-airs, who protests against the in- 
decency of his entering the vehicle, but like a 
certain lady in the Rake's Progress, holds the 
sticks of her fan before her face while he does 
so, and who is afterwards found to be carrying 
Nantes under the guise of Hungary-water ; 
there is the lawyer who advises that the wounded 
man shall be taken in, not from any humane mo- 
tive, but because he is afraid of being involved 



no Henry Fielding 

in legal proceedings if they leave him to his fate ; 
there is the wit who seizes the occasion for a 
burst of equivocal facetice, chiefly designed for 
the discomfiture of the prude ; and, lastly, there 
is the coachman, whose only concern is the shil- 
ling for his fare, and who refuses to lend either 
of the useless greatcoats he is sitting upon, lest 
*Uhey should be made bloody," leaving the 
shivering suppliant to be clothed by the generos- 
ity of the postilion Q' a Lad," says Fielding with 
a fine touch of satire, *' who hath been since 
transported for robbing a Hen-roost "). This 
worthy fellow accordingly strips off his only outer 
garment, ^* at the same time swearing a great 
Oath," for which he is piously rebuked by the 
passengers, ^' that he would rather ride in his 
Shirt all his Life, than suffer a Fellow-Creature 
to lie in so miserable a Condition." Then there 
are the admirable scenes which succeed Joseph's 
admission into the inn ; the discussion between 
the bookseller and the two parsons as to the 
publication of Adams's sermons, which the 
''Clergy would be certain to cry down," be- 
cause they inculcate good words against faith ; 
the debate before the justice as to the manuscript 
of iEschylus, which is mistaken for one of the 
Fathers ; and the pleasant discourse between the 
poet and the player which, beginning by compli- 



A Memoir m 

merits, bids fair to end in blows. Nor are the 
stories of Leonora and Mr. Wilson without their 
interest. They interrupt the straggling narrative 
far less than the Man of the Hill interrupts Tom 
Jones, and they afford an opportunity for varying 
the epic of the highway by pictures of polite so- 
ciety which could not otherwise be introduced. 
There can be little doubt, too, that some of Mr. 
Wilson's town experiences were the reflection of 
the author's own career ; while the character- 
istics of Leonora's lover Horatio, — who was 
**a young Gentleman of a good Family, bred to 
the Law," and recently called to the Bar, whose 
** Face and Person were such as the Generality 
allowed handsome : but he had a Dignity in his 
Air very rarely to be seen," and who *^had Wit 
and Humour with an Inclination to Satire, which 
he indulged rather too much" — read almost 
like a complimentary description of Fielding him- 
self.i 

Like Hogarth, in that famous drinking scene to 
which reference has already been made. Fielding 
was careful to disclaim any personal portraiture 
in Joseph Andrews. In the opening chapter of 
Book iii. he declares ** once for all, that he de- 
scribes not Men, but Manners; not an Indi- 
vidual, but a Species," although he admits that 

1 Joseph Andrews i 2d Ed., 1742, i. 157-8. 



112 Henry Fielding 

his characters are *' taken from Life.'' In his 
^' Preface," he reiterates this profession, adding 
that in copying from nature^ he has ^' used the 
utmost Care to obscure the Persons by such differ- 
ent Circumstances, Degrees, and Colours, that it 
will be impossible to guess at them with any de- 
gree of Certainty." Nevertheless — as in Ho- 
garth's case — neither his protests nor his skill 
have prevented some of those identifications 
which are so seductive to the curious ; and it is 
generally believed, — indeed, it was expressly 
stated by Richardson and others, — that the 
prototype of Parson Adams was a friend of 
Fielding, the Reverend William Young. Like 
Adams, he was a scholar and devoted to 
iEschylus ; he resembled him, too, in his trick of 
snapping his fingers, and his habitual absence of 
mind. Of this latter peculiarity it is related that 
on one occasion, when a chaplain in Marl- 
borough's wars, he strolled abstractedly into the 
enemy's lines with his beloved jEschylus in his 
hand. His peaceable intentions were so unmis- 
takable that he was instantly released, and po- 
litely directed to his regiment. Once, too, it is 
said, on being charged by a gentleman with sit- 
ting for the portrait of Adams, he offered to 
knock the speaker down, thereby supplying ad- 
ditional proof of the truth of the allegation. He 



A Memoir 113 

died in August, 17^7, and is buried in the Chapel 
of Chelsea Hospital. The obituary notice in 
the Genilemans Magazine describes him as 
*'late of Gillingham, Dorsetshire/' which would 
make him a neighbour of the novelist.^ Another 
tradition connects Mr. Peter Pounce with the 
scrivener and usurer Peter Walter, whom Pope 
had satirised, and whom Hogarth is thought to 
have introduced i^nto Plate i. of Marriage 
d-la-Mode. His sister lived at Salisbury; and 
he himself had an estate at Staibridge Park, 
which was close to East Stour. From references 
to Walter in the Champion,'^ as well as in the 
Essay on Conversation,^ it is clear that Fielding 
knew him personally, and disliked him. He 
may, indeed, have been among those county 
magnates whose criticism was so objectionable to 
Captain Booth during his brief residence in 
Dorsetshire. Parson Trulliber, also, according 
to Murphy, was Fielding's first tutor — Mr. 
Oliver of Motcombe. But his w^dow denied 
the resemblance ; and it is hard to believe that 
this portrait is not overcharged. In all these 
cases, however, there is no reason for supposing 
that Fielding, like many another from Le Sage to 

' Lord Thurlow was accustomed to find a later likeness to 
Fielding's hero in his protege j the poet Crabbe. 

«3I May, 1740. ^ Miscellanies ^ 1743, i. 136. 



114 Henry Fielding 

Daudet, may not have thoroughly believed in the 
sincerity of his attempts to avoid the exact re- 
production of actual persons, although, rightly 
or wrongly, his presentments were speedily 
identified. With ordinary people it is by salient 
characteristics that a likeness is established ; and 
no variation of detail, however skilful, greatly 
affects this result. In our own days we have 
seen that, in spite of both authors, the public de- 
clined to believe that the Harold Skimpole of 
Charles Dickens, and George Eliot's Dinah 
Morris, were not perfectly recognisable copies 
of living originals. 

Upon its title-page, Joseph Andrews is declared 
to be *^ written in Imitation of the Manner of 
Cervantes," and there is no doubt that, in addi- 
tion to being subjected to an unreasonable 
amount of ill-usage, Parson Adams has manifest 
affinities with Don Quixote. Scott, however, 
seems to have thought that Scarron's Roman 
Comique was the real model, so far as mock- 
heroic was concerned ; but he must have for- 
gotten that Fielding was already the author of 
Tom Thumb, and that Swift had written the 
Battle of the Books. Resemblances have also 
been traced to the Paysan Parvenu and the His- 
toire de Marianne of Marivaux. With both these 
books Fielding was familiar ; in fact, he ex- 



A Memoir 115 

pressly mentions them, as well as the Roman 
Comlque, in the course of his story, and they 
doubtless exercised more or less influence upon 
his plan. But in the Preface^ from which we 
have already quoted, he describes that plan ; and 
this, because it is something definite, is more in- 
teresting than any speculation as to his determin- 
ing models. After marking the division of the 
Epic, like the Drama^ into Tragedy and Comedy, 
he points out that it may exist in prose as well as 
verse, and he proceeds to explain that what he 
has attempted in Joseph Andrews is " a comic 
Epic-Poem in Prose," differing from serious ro- 
mance in its substitution of a light and ridic- 
ulous " fable for a '^ grave and solemn " one, of 
inferior characters for those of superior rank, 
and of ludicrous for sublime sentiments. Some- 
times in the diction he has admitted burlesque, 
but never in the sentiments and characters, where, 
he contends, it would be out of place. He 
further defines the only source of the true ridicu- 
lous to be affectation, of which the chief causes 
are vanity and hypocrisy. Whether this scheme 
was an after-thought it is difficult to say ; but it 
is certainly necessary to a proper understanding 
of the author's method — a method which Vv'as to 
find so many imitators. Another passage in the 
Preface is worthy of remark. With reference to 



ii6 Henry Fielding 

the pictures of vice which the book contains, he 
observes : *• First, That it is very difficult to 
pursue a Series of human Actions, and keep 
clear from them. Secondly, That the Vices to 
be found here [u e,, in Joseph Andrews] are rather 
the accidental Consequences of some human 
Frailty, or Foible, than Causes habitually exist- 
ing in the Mind. Thirdly, That they are never 
set forth as the Objects of Ridicule but Detes- 
tation. Fourthly, That they are never the prin- 
cipal Figure at that Time on the Scene ; and, 
lastly, they never produce the intended Evil.''^ 
In reading some pages of Fielding it is not al- 
ways easy to see that he has strictly adhered to 
these principles ; but it is well to recall them oc- 
casionally, as constituting at all events the code 
that he desired to follow. 

Although the popularity of Fielding's first 
novel was considerable, it did not, to judge by 
the number of editions, at once equal the popu- 
larity of the book by which it was suggested. 
Pamela, as we have seen, speedily ran through 
four editions ; but it was six months before Millar 
published the second and revised edition of 
Joseph Andrews ;^ and the third did not appear 

1 Joseph Andrews y 2d Ed., 1742, i., xiv.-v. 

2 From certain extracts from the ledger of Woodfall, the 
printer, which were published in Notes and Queries, 1st 



A Memoir 117 

until more than a year after the date of first pub- 
lication. With Richardson, as might be ex- 
pected, it was never popular at all, and to a great 
extent it is possible to sympathise with his an- 
noyance. The daughter of his brain, whom he 
had piloted through so many troubles, had grown 
to him more real than the daughters of his body, 
and to see her at the height of her fame made 
contemptible by what in one of his letters he 
terms ^' a lewd and ungenerous engraftment,'' 
m.ust have been a sore trial to his absorbed and 
self-conscious nature, and one which not all the 
consolations of his consistory of feminine flatterers 
— *^ my ladies," as the little man called them — 
could wholly alleviate. But it must be admitted 
that his subsequent attitude was neither judicious 
nor dignified. He pursued Fielding henceforth 
with steady depreciation, caught eagerly at any 
scandal respecting him, professed himself unable 
to perceive his genius, deplored his ''lowness," 
and comforted himself by reflecting that, if he 
pleased at all, it was because he had learned the 
art from Pamela, Of Fielding's other contempo- 
rary critics, one only need be mentioned here, 
more on account of his literary eminence than of 

Series, xi. 418, it appears that 1500 copies of the first edition 
were struck off in February, 1742, and 2000 of the second 
in the following May. 



ii8 Henry Fielding 

the special felicity of his judgment. *^ I have 
myself/' writes Gray to West, '* upon your rec- 
ommendation, been reading Joseph Andrews. 
The incidents are ill laid and without invention ; 
but the characters have a great deal of nature, 
which always pleases even in her lowest shapes. 
Parson Adams is perfectly well ; so is Mrs. Slip- 
slop, and the story of Wilson ; and throughout 
he [the author] shews himself well read in Stage- 
Coaches, Country Squires, Inns, and Inns of 
Court. His reflections upon high people and 
low people, and misses and masters, are very 
good. However the exaltedness of some minds 
(or rather as I shrewdly suspect their insipidity 
and want of feeling or observation) may make 
them insensible to these light things, (I mean 
such as characterise and paint nature) yet surely 
they are as weighty and much more useful than 
your grave discourses upon the mind, the pas- 
sions, and what not."" -^ And thereupon follows 
that fantastic utterance concerning the romances 
of MM. Marivaux and Cr6billon_/z/5, which has 
disconcerted so many of Gray's admirers. We 
suspect that any reader who should nowadays 
contrast the sickly and sordid intrigue of the 
Paysan Parvenu with the healthy animalism of 
1 Mason's Poems and Memoirs of Gray, 2d Ed., 1 7 75, 
pp. 138-9. 



A Memoir 119 

Joseph Andrews would greatly prefer the latter. 
Yet Gray's verdict, though cold, is not undis- 
criminating, and is perhaps as much as one could 
expect from his cloistered and fastidious taste. 

Various anecdotes, all more or less apocryphal, 
have been related respecting the first appearance 
of Joseph Andrews^ and the sum paid to the 
author for the copyright. A reference to the 
original assignment, now in the Forster Library 
at South Kensington, definitely settles the latter 
point. The amount in '' lawful Money of Great 
Britain," received by ** Henry Fielding, of the 
Middle Temple, Esq.," from " Andrew Millar 
of St. Clement's Danes in the Strand, Book- 
seller," was £iQ] : iis. In this document, as 
in the order to Nourse of which a facsimile is 
given by Roscoe, both the author's name and 
signature are written with the old-fashioned 
double f, and he calls himself ^* Fielding" and 
not ** Feilding," like the rest of the Denbigh 
family. If we may trust an anecdote given by 
Kippis, ^ the fifth Lord Denbigh once asked his 
kinsman the reason of this difference. ^' I can- 
not tell, my Lord," returned the novelist, ''ex- 
cept it be that my branch of the family were the 
first that knew how to spell." In connection 
with this assignment, however, what is perhaps 
1 Nichol's Literary Anecdotes ^ 1812, iii. 384. 



I20 Henry Fielding 

even more interesting than these discrepancies is 
the fact that one of the witnesses was William 
Young. Thus we have Parson Adams acting as 
witness to the sale of the very book which he 
had helped to immortalise. 



CHAPTER IV 

Vindication of the Duchess of Marlboroughy'^\.2,xQS\^ 1 742; 
Miss Lucy in Town^ May ; PlutuSy the God of Riches^ 
May; Pope and Fielding; Garrick and The Wedding 
Day ; Macklin's prologue ; the Miscellanies y April, 1743; 
Essays, " On Conversation ; " « On the Characters 
of Men ; " "A Journey from this World to the Next; " 
" Jonathan Wild ; " domestic history, and death of Mrs. 
Fielding, 1743, (?) ; Lady Louisa Stuart's account; Mr. 
Keightley's comments ; prefaces to David Simple and 
Fainiliar Letters; the True Patriot , 1745, and the 
Jacobite'* s Journal y 1747; tribute to Richardson; second 
marriage, 27 November, 1747 ; Justice of Peace for West- 
minster and Middlesex, December, 1748. 

TN March, 1742, according to an article in 
^ the Gentleman s Magazine, attributed to Sam- 
uel Johnson, ** the most popular Topic of Con- 
versation " was the Account of the Conduct of the 
Dowager Duchess of Marlborough^ from her first 
coming to Court, to the Year 1710, which, 
with the help of Hooke of the Roman History, 
the ** terrible old Sarah" had just put forth. 
Among the little cloud of Sarah- Ads and Old 
Wives' Tales evoked by this production, was a 
Vindication of her Grace by Fielding, specially 



122 Henry Fielding 

prompted, as appears from the title-page, by the 
*^ late scurrilous Pamphlet " of a '* noble 
Author." If this were not acknowledged to be 
from Fielding's pen in the Preface to the Miscel- 
lanies (in which collection, however, it is not re- 
printed), its authorship would be sufficiently 
proved by its being included with Miss Lucy in 
Towri in the assignment to Andrew Millar re- 
ferred to at the close of the preceding chapter. 
The price Millar paid for it was £^ : ^s., or ex- 
actly half that of the farce. But it is only reason- 
able to assume that the Duchess herself (who is 
said to have given Hooke ;^)000 for his help) 
also rewarded her champion. Whether Field- 
ing's admiration for the *' glorious Woman" in 
whose cause he had drawn his pen was genuine, 
or whether — to use Johnson's convenient eu- 
phemism concerning Hooke — **he was acting 
only ministerially," are matters for speculation. 
His father, however, had served under the Duke, 
and there may have been a traditional attachment 
to the Churchills on the part of his family. It 
has even been ingeniously suggested that Sarah 
Fielding was her Grace's god-child ; ^ but as her 
mother's name was also Sarah, no importance can 
be attached to the suggestion. 

1 Memoirs of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough^ etc., by 
Mrs. A. T. Thomson, 1839. 



A Memoir 1 23 

Miss Lucy in Town, as its sub-title explains, 
was a sequel to the Virgin Unmask'd, and was 
produced at Drury Lane in May, 1742. As 
already stated in chapter ii., Fielding's part in it 
was small. It is a lively but not very creditable 
trifle, which turns upon certain equivocal London 
experiences of the Miss Lucy of the earlier piece ; 
and it seems to have been chiefly intended to 
afford an opportunity for some clever imitation of 
the reigning Italian singers by Mrs. Cliveandthe 
famous tenor Beard. Horace Walpole, who re- 
fers to it in a letter to Mann, between an ac- 
count of the opening of Ranelagh and an anec- 
dote of Mrs. Bracegirdle, calls it '' a little simple 
farce," and says that '' Mrs. Clive mimics the 
Muscovita admirably, and Beard, Amorevoli tol- 
erably.''^ Mr. Walpole detested the Muscovita, 
and adored Amorevoli, which perhaps accounts for 
the nice discrimination shown in his praise. One 
of the other characters, Mr, Zorobabel, a Jew, was 
taken by Macklin, and from another, Mrs. Hay- 
cock (afterwards changed to Mrs. Midnight), 
Foote is supposed to have borrowed Mother 
Cole in The Miner. A third character. Lord 
Bawble^ was considered to reflect upon '^a par- 
ticular person of quality,'' and the piece was 
speedily forbidden by the Lord Chamberlain, al- 
1 Correspondence f by Cunningham, 1877, ^* ^^S* 



124 Henry Fielding 

though it appears to have been acted a few 
months later without opposition. One of the re- 
sults of the prohibition, according to Mr. Law- 
rence, was a Letter to a Noble Lord (the Lord 
Chamberlain) . . . occasioned by a Represen- 
tation . , . of a Farce called *' Miss Lucy in 
Town'' This, in spite of the Caveat in the Pref- 
ace to the Miscellanies^ he ascribes to Fielding, 
and styles it ''a sharp expostulation ... in 
which he [Fielding] disavowed any idea of a per- 
sonal attack."^ But Mr. Lawrence must have 
been misinformed on the subject, for the pam- 
phlet bears little sign of Fielding's hand. As far 
as it is intelligible, it is rather against Miss Lucy 
than for her, and it makes no reference to Lord 
Bawble's original. The name of this injured pa- 
trician seems indeed never to have transpired ; 
but he could scarcely have been in any sense an 
exceptional member of the Georgian aristocracy. 
In the same month that Miss Lucy in Town 
appeared at Drury Lane, Millar published it in 
book form. In the following June, T. Waller of 
the Temple-Cloisters issued the first of a contem- 
plated series of translations from Aristophanes by 
Henry Fielding, Esq., and the Rev. William 
Young who sat for Parson Adams. The play 
chosen was Plutus, the God of Riches, and a 

1 Life of Fielding, 1855, 168. 



A Memoir 125 

notice upon the original cover stated that, accord- 
ing to the reception it met with from the public, 
it would be followed by the others. It must be 
presumed that ** the distressed, and at present, 
declining State of Learning '' to which the au- 
thors referred in their dedication to Lord Tal- 
bot, was not a mere form of speech, for the enter- 
prise does not seem to have met with sufficient 
encouragement to justify its continuance, and 
this special rendering has long since been sup- 
planted by the more modern versions of Mitchell, 
Frere, and others. Whether Fielding took any 
large share in it is not now discernible. It is most 
likely, however, that the bulk of the work was 
Young's, and that his colleague did little more 
than furnish the Preface, which is partly written 
in the first person, and betrays its origin by a 
sudden and not very relevant attack upon the 
*^ pretty, dapper, brisk, smart, pert Dialogue " of 
Modern Comedy into which the *' infinite Wit '' 
of Wycherley had degenerated under Gibber. 
It also contains a compliment to the numbers of 
the *' inimitable Author'' of the Essay on Man. 
This is the second compliment which Fielding 
had paid to Pope within a brief period, the first 
having been that in the Champion respecting the 
translation of the Iliad. What his exact relations 
with the author of the Dunciad were, has never 



126 Henry Fielding 

been divulged. At first they seem to have been 
rather hostile than friendly. Fielding had ridi- 
culed the Roman Church in the Old Debauchees, 
a course which Pope could scarcely have ap- 
proved ; and he was, moreover, the cousin of 
Lady Mary, now no longer throned in the 
Twickenham Temple. Pope had commented 
upon a passage in Tom Thumb, and Fielding had 
indirectly referred to Pope in the Covent Garden 
Tragedy, When it had been reported that Pope 
had gone to see Pasquin, the statement had been 
at once contradicted. But Fielding was now, 
like Pope, against Walpole ; and Joseph Andrews 
had been published. It may therefore be that 
the compliments in Plutus and the Champion 
were the result of some rapprochement between 
the two. It is, nevertheless, curious that, at this 
very time, an attempt appears to have been made 
to connect the novelist with the controversy 
which presently arose out of Gibber's well-known 
letter to Pope. In August, 1742, the month fol- 
lowing its publication, among the pamphlets to 
which it gave rise, was announced The Cudgel; 
or, a Crab-tree Lecture, To the Author of the 
Dunciad. '' By Hercules Vinegar, Esq.'' This 
very mediocre satire in verse is still to be found 
at the British Museum ; but even if it were not 
included in Fielding's general disclaimer as to 



A Memoir 127 

unsigned work, it would be difficult to connect it 
with him. To give but one reason, it would 
make him the ally and adherent of Gibber, — 
which is absurd. In all probability, like another 
Grub Street squib under the same pseudonym, it 
was by Ralph, who had already attacked Pope, 
and continued to maintain the Gaptain's character 
in the Champion long after Fielding had ceased 
to write for it. It is even possible that Ralph 
had some share in originating the Vinegar family, 
for it is noticeable that the paper in which they 
are first introduced bears no initials. In this case 
he would consider himself free to adopt the name, 
however disadvantageous that course might be to 
Fielding's reputation. And it is clear that, what- 
ever their relations had been in the past, they 
were for the time on opposite sides in politics, since 
while Fielding had been vindicating the Duchess 
of Marlborough^ Ralph had been writing against 
her. 

These, however, are minor questions, the dis- 
cussion of which would lead too far from the 
main narrative of Fielding's life. In the same 
letter in which Walpole had referred to Miss 
Lucy III Toirn, he had spoken of the success of 
a new player at Goodman's Fields, after whom 
all the town, in Gray's phrase, was ** horn-mad ; '' 
but in whose acting Mr. Walpole, with a critical 



128 Henry Fielding 

distrust of novelty, saw nothing particularly won- 
derful. This was David Garrick. He had been 
admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn a year before 
Fielding entered the Middle Temple, had after- 
wards turned wine-merchant, and was now de- 
lighting London by his versatility in comedy, 
tragedy, and farce. One of his earliest theatrical 
exploits, according to Sir John Hawkins, had 
been a private representation of Fielding's 
Mock-Doctor, in a room over the St. John's Gate, 
Clerkenwell, so long familiar to subscribers of 
the Gentleman's Magazine ; his fellow-actors 
being Cave's journeymen printers, and his audi- 
ence Cave, Johnson, and a few friends.^ After 
this he appears to have made the acquaintance of 
Fielding; and late in 1742, applied to him to 
know if he had '^ any Play by him," as *' he was 
desirous of appearing in a new Part." As a 
matter of fact Fielding had two plays by him — 
the Good-natured Man (a title subsequently used 
by Goldsmith), and a piece called The Wedding 
Day. The former was almost finished : the latter 
was an early work, being indeed " the third Dra- 
matic Performance he ever attempted." The 
necessary arrangements having been made with 
Mr. Fleetwood, the manager of Drury Lane, 
Fielding set to work to complete the Good- 

1 Life of Johnson f 1787, p. 45. 



A Memoir 129 

natured Man, which he considered the better of 
the two. When he had done so, he came to 
the conclusion that it required more attention 
than he could give it ; and moreover, that the 
part allotted to Garrick, although it satisfied the 
actor, was scarcely important enough. He ac- 
cordingly reverted to the Wedding Day, the cen- 
tral character of which had been intended for 
Wilks. It had many faults which none saw more 
clearly than the author himself, but he hoped that 
Garrick's energy and reputation, would trium- 
phantly surmount all obstacles. He hoped, as 
well, to improve it by revision. The dangerous 
illness of his wife, however, made it impossible 
for him to execute his task ; and, as he was 
pressed for money, the Wedding Day was pro- 
duced on the 17th of February, 1743, appar- 
ently much as it had been first written some dozen 
years before. As might be anticipated, it was 
not a success. The character of Millamour is 
one which it is hard to believe that even Garrick 
could have made attractive, and though others of 
the parts were entrusted to Mrs. Woffington, 
Mrs. Pritchard, and Macklin, it was acted but six 
nights. The author's gains were under £)0, 
In the Preface to the Miscellanies, from which 
most of the foregoing account is taken, Fielding, 
as usual, refers its failure to other causes than its 



130 Henry Fielding 

inherent defects. Rumours, he says, had been 
circulated as to its indecency (and in truth some 
of the scenes are more than hazardous) ; but it 
had passed the licenser, and must be supposed to 
have been up to the moral standard of the time. 
Its unfavourable reception, as Fielding must 
have known in his heart, w^as due to its artistic 
shortcomings, and also to the fact that a change 
was taking place in the public taste. It is in con- 
nection with the Wedding Day that one of the 
best-known anecdotes of the author is related. 
Garrick had begged him to retrench a certain 
passage. This Fielding, either from indolence or 
unwillingness, declined to do, asserting that if it 
was not good, the audience might find it out. The 
passage was promptly hissed, and Garrick returned 
to the green-room, where the author was solacing 
himself with a bottle of champagne. "What is 
the matter, Garrick?'' said he to the flustered 
actor; ** what are they hissing now .^ '' He was 
informed with some heat that they had been hiss- 
ing the very scene he had been asked to with- 
draw, "and," added Garrick, "they have so 
frightened me, that I shall not be able to collect 
myself again the whole night." — ^"Oh!" an- 
swered the author, with an oath, " they have 
found it out, have they ? " This rejoinder is 
usually quoted as an instance of Fielding's con- 



A Memoir 131 

tempt for the intelligence of his audience ; but 
nine men in ten, it may be observed, would have 
said something of the same sort.^ 

The only other thing which need be re- 
ferred to in connection with this comedy — the 
last of his own dramatic works which Fielding 
J ever witnessed upon the stage — is Macklin's 
doggerel Prologue. Mr. Lawrence attributes 
this to Fielding ; but he seems to have over- 
looked the fact that in the Miscellanies it is 
headed, ''Writ and Spoken by Mr. Macklin/' 
which gives it more interest as the work of an 
outsider than if it had been a mere laugh by the 
author at himself. Garrick is represented as 
too busy to speak the prologue ; and Fielding, 
who has been *' drinking to raise his Spirits/' 
has begged Macklin with his *'long, dismal, 
Mercy-begging Face," to go on and apologise. 
Macklin then pretends to recognise him among 
the audience, and pokes fun at his anxieties, 
telling him that he had better have stuck to 
** honest Abram AdamSy"" who, ^^in spight of 
Critics, can make his Readers laugh." The 
words *Mn spite of critics" indicate another dis- 
tinction between Fielding's novels and plays, 
which should have its weight in any comparison 
of them. The censors of the pit, in the eight- 
1 Works y 1762, i. 26. 



132 Henry Fielding 

eenth century, seem to have exercised an un- 
usual influence in deciding whether a play 
should succeed or not ; ^ and, from Fielding's 
frequent references to friends and enemies, it 
would almost seem as if he believed their suffrages 
to be more important than a good plot and a 
witty dialogue. On the other hand, no coterie 
of Wits and Templars could kill a book like Joseph 
Andrews, To say nothing of the opportunities 
afforded by the novel for more leisurely character- 
drawing, and greater by-play of reflection and 
description — its reader was an isolated and inde- 
pendent judge ; and in the long run the differ- 
ence told wonderfully in favour of the author. 
Macklin was obviously right in recommending 
Fielding, even in jest, to stick to Parson Adams, 
and from the familiar publicity of the advice it 
may also be inferred, not only that the opinion 
was one commonly current, but that the novel 
was unusually popular. 

The Wedding Day was issued separately in 
February, 174?. It must therefore be assumed 
that the three volumes of Miscellanies^ by Henry 
Fielding, Esq., in which it was reprinted^ and to 

1 The Rev. James Miller's Coffee-House, for example, was 
damned in 1737 by the Templars because it was supposed 
to reflect on Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter, the keepers of 
" Dick's," at Temple Bar. {Biog. Draiiiatica, 1812, ii. 1 1 1.) 



A Memoir 133 

which reference has so ofien been made in these 
pages, did not appear until later.^ They were 
published by subscription ; and the list, in ad- 
dition to a large number of aristocratic and legal 
names, contains some of more permanent interest. 
Side by side with the Chesterfields and Marl- 
boroughs and Buriingtons and Denbighs, come 
William Pitt and Henry Fox, Esqs., with Dod- 
ington and Winnington and Hanbury Williams. 
The theatrical world is well represented by 
Garrick and Mrs. Woffington and Mrs. Clive. 
Literature has no names of any eminence except 
that of Young ; for savage and Whitehead, Mal- 
let and Benjamin Hoadley, are certainly lesser 
lights. Pope is conspicuous for his absence : so 
also are Horace Walpole and Gray, while Rich- 
ardson, of course, is wanting. Johnson, as yet 
only the author of London, and journeyman to 
Cave, could scarcely be expected in the roll ; 
and, in any case, his friendship for the author of 
Pamela would probably have kept hira away. 
Among some other well-known eighteenth cen- 
tury names are those of Dodsley and Millar the 
booksellers, and the famous Vauxhall proprietor 
Jonathan Tyers. 

' By advertisement in the Lojtdon Daily Post and General 
Advertiser^ they would seem to have been published early in 
April, 1743. 



134 Henry Fielding 

The first volume of the Miscellanies, besides a 
lengthy Preface, includes the author's poems, 
essays On Conversation. On the Knowledge of 
the Character of Men, On Nothing, a squib upon 
the transactions of the Royal Society, a transla- 
tion from Demosthenes, and one or two minor 
pieces. Of much of the biographical material 
contained in the Preface use has already been 
made, as well as of those verses which can be 
definitely dated^ or which relate to the author's 
love-affairs. The hitherto unnoticed portions of 
the volume consist chiefly of Epistles, in the 
orthodox eighteenth century fashion. One is 
headed Of True Greatness; another, inscribed 
to the Duke of Richmond, Of Good-nature ; 
while a third is addressed to a friend On the 
Choice of a Wife. This last contains some 
sensible lines, but although Roscoe has managed 
to extract two quotable passages, it is needless 
to imitate him here. These productions show 
no trace of the authentic Fielding. The essays 
are more remarkable, although, like Montaigne's, 
they are scarcely described by their titles. That 
on Conversation is really a little treatise on good 
breeding ; that on the Characters of Men, a lay 
sermon against Fielding's pet antipathy — hy- 
pocrisy. Nothing can well be wiser, even now, 
than some of the counsels in the former of these 



A Memoir 135 

papers on such themes as the limits of raillery, 
the duties of hospitality, and the choice of sub- 
ject in general conversation. Nor, however 
threadbare they may look to-day, can the final 
conclusions be reasonably objected to : *' First, 
That every Person vi^ho indulges his Ill-nature or 
Vanity, at the Expense of others ; and in intro- 
ducing Uneasiness, Vexation, and Confusion 
into Society, hov\^ever exalted or high-titled he 
may be, is thoroughly ill-bred ; " and ** Secondly, 
That whoever, from the Goodness of his Dispo- 
sition or Understanding, endeavours to his ut- 
most to cultivate the Good-humour and Happi- 
ness of others, and to contribute to the Ease and 
Comfort of all his Acquaintance^ however low in 
Rank Fortune may have placed him, or however 
clumsy he may be in his Figure or Demeanour, 
hath, in the truest Sense of the Word, a Claim 
to Good-Breeding."^ One fancies that this 
essay must have been a favourite with the his- 
torian of the Book of Snobs and the creator of 
Major Dobbin. 

The Characters of Men is not equal to the 
Conversation. The theme is a wider one ; and 
the end proposed, — that of supplying rules for 
detecting the real disposition through all the 
social disguises which cloak and envelop it, — can 
1 Miscella7iieSy 1743, i. 178. 



136 Henry Fielding 

scarcely be said to be attained. But there are 
happy touches even in this ; and when the author 
says — "I will venture to affirm^ that I have 
known some of the best sort of Men in the World 
(to use the vulgar Phrase,) who would not have 
scrupled cutting a Friend's Throat; and a 
Fellow whom no Man should be seen to speak to, 
capable of the highest Acts of Friendship and 
Benevolence/' ^ one recognises the hand that 
made the sole good Samaritan in Joseph Andrews 
'' a Lad who hath since been transported for rob- 
bing a Hen-roost." The account of the Terres- 
trial Chrysipus, or Guinea, a burlesque on a 
paper read before the Royal Society of the Fresh 
Water Polypus, is chiefly interesting from the 
fact that it is supposed to be written by Petrus 
Gualterus (Peter Walter), who had an '' extraor- 
dinary Collection'' of them. He died in fact, 
worth ;^ 300,000. The only other paper in the vol- 
ume of any value is a short one Of the Remedy of 
Affliction for the Loss of our Friends^ to which 
we shall presently return. 

The farce of Eurydice, and the Wedding Day, 
which, with A Journey from this World to the 
Next, etc., make up the contents of the second 
volume of the Miscellanies, have been already 
sufficiently discussed. But the Journey deserves 

^ MiscellanieSy 1743, i. 199. 



A Memoir 137 

some further notice. It has been suggested that 
this curious Lucianic production may have been 
prompted by the vision of Mercury and Charon 
in the Champion, though the kind of allegory of 
which it consists is common enough v/ith the 
elder essayists ; and it is notable that another 
book was published in April, 1743, under the 
title of Cardinal Fleurys Journey to the other 
World, which is manifestly suggested by Quevedo. 
Fielding's Journey, however, is a fragment which 
the author feigns to have found in the garret of a 
stationer in the Strand. Sixteen out of flve-and- 
twenty chapters in Book i. are occupied with the 
transmigrations of Julian the Apostate, whichare 
not concluded. Then follows another chapter 
from Book xix., which contains the history of 
Anna Boleyn, and the whole breaks off abruptly. 
Its best portion is undoubtedly the first nine 
chapters, which relate the writer's progress to 
Elysium, and afford opportunity for many strokes 
of satire. Such are the whimsical terror of the 
spiritual traveller in the stage-coach, who hears 
suddenly that his neighbour has died of small- 
pox, a disease he had been dreading all his life ; 
and the punishment of Lord Scrape, the miser, 
who is doomed to dole out money to all comers, 
and who, after *^ being purified in the Body of a 
Hog/' is ultimately to return to earth again. 



138 Henry Fielding 

Nor is the delight of some of those who profit by 
his enforced assistance less keenly realised : 
** I remarked a poetical Spirit in particular, who 
swore he would have a hearty Gripe at him : 
* For, says he, the Rascal not only refused to 
subscribe to my Works ; but sent back my Letter 
unanswered, tho' Tm a better Gentleman than 
himself/ " ^ The descriptions of the City of 
Diseases, the Palace of Death, and the Wheel of 
Fortune from which men draw their chequered 
lots, are all unrivalled in their way. But here, 
as always, it is in his pictures of human nature 
that Fielding shines, and it is this that makes the 
chapters in which Minos is shown adjudicating 
upon the separate claims of the claimants to enter 
Elysium the most piquant of all. The virtuoso 
and butterfly hunter, who is repulsed ^' with great 
Scorn ; '' the dramatic author who is admitted (to 
his disgust), not on account of his works, but be- 
cause he has once lent " the whole Profits of a 
Benefit Night to a Friend ; " the parson who is 
turned back, while his poor parishioners are ad- 
mitted ; and the trembling wretch who has been 
hanged for a robbery of eighteen-pence, to which 
he had been driven by poverty, but whom the 
judge welcomes cordially because he had been a 
kind father, husband, and son ; all these are con- 

1 Miscellanies, I743> ii- 25. 



A Memoir 139 

ceived in that humane and generous spirit which 
is Fielding's most engaging characteristic. The 
chapter immediately following^ which describes 
the literary and other inhabitants of Elysium, is 
even better. Here is Leonidas, who appears to 
be only moderately gratified with the honour re- 
cently done him by Mr. Glover, the poet; here 
is Homer, toying with Madam Dacier, and pro- 
foundly indifferent as to his birth-place and the 
continuity of his poems ; here, too, is Shake- 
speare, w^ho, foreseeing future commentators and 
the ^* New Shakespeare Society," declines to en- 
lighten Betterton and Booth as to a disputed 
passage in his works, adding, " I marvel nothing 
so much as that Men will gird themselves at dis- 
covering obscure Beauties in an Author. Certes 
the greatest and most pregnant Beauties are ever 
the plainest and most evidently striking ; and 
when two Meanings of a Passage can in the least 
balance our Judgm.ents which to prefer, I hold 
it matter of unquestionable Certainty that neither 
is worth a farthing.''^ Then, again, there are 
Addison and Steele, w^ho are described with so 
pleasant a knowledge of their personalities that, 
although the passage has been often quoted, there 
seems to be no reason why it should not be quoted 
once more : 

^ Miscellanies y 1743, ii. 67-8. 



140 Henry Fielding 

^^ Virgil then came up to me, with Mr. Addison 
under his Arm. Well, Sir, said he, how many 
Translations have these few last Years produced 
of my jEneid) I told him, I believed several, 
but I could not possibly remember ; for I had 
never read any but Dr. Trapp's? — Ay, said he, 
that is a curious Piece indeed I I then ac- 
quainted him with the Discovery made by Mr. 
Warburton of the Eleusinian Mysteries couched 
in his 6th book. What Mysteries ? said Mr. 
Addison. The Eleusinian, answered Virgil, 
which I have disclosed in my 6th Book. How ! 
replied Addison, You never mentioned a word 
of any such Mysteries to me in all our Acquaint- 
ance. I thought it was unnecessary, cried the 
other, to a Man of your infinite Learning : be- 
sides, you always told me, you perfectly under- 
stood my meaning. Upon this I thought the 
Critic looked a little out of countenance, and 
turned aside to a very merry Spirit, one Dick 
Steele, who embraced him and told him. He had 
been the greatest Man upon Earth ; that he read- 
ily resigned up all the Merit of his own Works to 
him. Upon which, Addison gave him a gracious 
Smile, and clapping him on the Back with much 
Solemnity, cried out, Well said, Dick.''"^ 

1 Dr. Trapp's translation of the yEneid was published in 
1718. 

^ Miscellanies f 1743, ii. 64-5. 



A Memoir 141 

After encountering these and other notabilities, 
including Tom Thumb and Livvy, the latter of 
whom takes occasion to commend the ingenious 
performances of Lady Marlborough's assistant, 
Mr. Hooke, the author meets with Julian the 
Apostate, and from this point the narrative grows 
languid. Its unfinished condition may perhaps 
be accepted as a proof that Fielding himself had 
wearied of his scheme. 

The third volume of the Miscellanies is wholly 
occupied with the remarkable work entitled the 
History of the Life of the late Mr. Jonathan Wild 
the Great, As in the case of the Journey from this 
World to the Next, it is not unlikely that the first 
germ of this may be found in the pages of the 
Champion, '' Reputation " — says Fielding in one 
of the essays in that periodical — *' often courts 
those most who regard her the least. Actions 
have som.etimes been attended with Fame, which 
were undertaken in Defiance of it. Jonathan 
W/ld himself had for miany years no small Share 
of it in this Kingdom." ^ The book now under 
consideration is the elaboration of the idea thus 
casually throvv^n out. Under the name of a no- 
torious thief-taker hanged at Tyburn in 1725, 
Fielding has traced the Progress of a Rogue to 
the Gallows, showing by innumerable subtle 

1 Champion y 1 741, i. 330. 



142 Henry Fielding 

touches that the (so-called) greatness of a villain 
does not very materially differ from any other 
kind of greatness, w^hich is equally independent 
of goodness. This continually suggested affinity 
betv^een the ignoble and the pseudo-noble is the 
text of the book. Against genuine worth, its 
author is careful to explain, his satire is in no 
wise directed. He is far from considering 
'^ Newgate as no other than Human Nature with 
its Mask off; '' but he thinks '' we may be ex- 
cused for suspecting, that the splendid Palaces 
of the Great are often no other than Newgate 
with the Mask on."^ Thus Jonathan Wild the 
Great is a prolonged satire upon the spurious 
eminence in which benevolence, honesty, charity, 
and the like have no part ; or, as Fielding prefers 
to term it, that false or '' Bombast Greatness ''^ 
which is so often mistaken for the '^ true Sublime 
in Human Nature" — Greatness and Goodness 
combined. So thoroughly has he explained his 
intention in the Prefaces to the Miscellanies, and 
to the book itself, that it is difficult to compre- 
hend how Scott could fail to see his drift. Pos- 
sibly, like some others, he found the subject re- 

'^ Miscellanies^ I743> i-» xx. 

2 Cf. the definition of •« Great " in No. 4 of the Covent 
Garden Journal: — "Applied to a Thing, signifies Bigness; 
when to a Man, often Littleness or Meanness.'* 



A Memoir 143 

pugnant and painful to his kindly nature. Pos- 
sibly, too, he did not, for this reason, study the 
book very carefully, for, with the episode of Heart- 
free under one's eyes, it is not strictly accurate to 
say (as he does) that it presents **a picture of 
complete vice, unrelieved by any thing of human 
feeling, and never by any accident even deviat- 
ing into virtue." ^ If the author's introduction 
be borne in mind, and if the book be read steadily 
in the light there supplied, no one can refrain 
from admiring the extraordinary skill and concen- 
tration with which the plan is pursued, and the 
adroitness with which, at every turn, the villainy 
of Wild is approximated to that of those securer 
and more illustrious criminals with whom he is 
so seldom confused. And Fielding has never 
carried one of his chief and characteristic excel- 
lences to so great perfection : the book is a 
model of sustained and sleepless irony. To 
make any extracts from it — still less to make any 
extracts which should do justice to it, is almost 
impracticable ; but the edifying discourse between 
Wild and Count La Ruse in Book i., and the 
pure comedy of that in Book iv. with the Ordi- 
nary of Newgate (who objects to wine, but drinks 
punch because '* it is no where spoken against in 
Scripture "), as well as the account of the prison 

^ Lives of the Novelists ^ 1825, i. 21. 



144 Henry Fielding 

faction between Wild and Johnson/ with its 
admirable speech of the '* grave Man" against 
Party, may all be cited as examples of its style 
and method. Nor should the character of Wild 
in the last chapter, and his famous rules of con- 
duct, be neglected. It must be admitted, how- 
ever, that the book is not calculated to suit the 
nicely-sensitive in letters ; or, it may be added, 
those readers for whom the evolution of a purely 
intellectual conception is either unmeaning or un- 
interesting. Its place in Fielding's works is im- 
mediately after his three great novels, and this is 
more by reason of its subject than its workman- 
ship, which could hardly be excelled. When it 
was actually composed is doubtful. If it may be 

1 Some critics at this point appear to have identified John- 
son and Wild with Lord Wilmington and Sir Robert Wal- 
pole (who resigned in 1742), while Mr. Keightley suspects 
that Wild throughout typifies Walpole. But the advertise- 
ment " from the Publisher " to the edition of 1754 disclaims 
any such "personal Application." "The Truth is (he 
says), as a very corrupt State of Morals is here represented, 
the Scene seems very properly to have been laid in New- 
gate : Nor do I see any Reason for introducing any allegory 
at all ; unless we will agree that there are, without those 
Walls, some other Bodies of Men of worse Morals than 
those within; and who have, consequently, a Right to 
change Places with its present Inhabitants." The writer 
was probably Fielding. 



A Memoir 145 

connected with the already-quoted passage in the 
Cliampion, it must be placed after March 4th, 
1740, which is the date of the paper ; but, from 
a reference to Peter Pounce in Book ii., it 
might also be supposed to have been written after 
Joseph Andrews. The Bath simile in chapter 
xiv. Book i., makes it likely that some part of 
it was penned at that place, where, from an epi- 
gram in the Miscellanies " written Extempore in 
the Pump Room," it is clear that Fielding was 
staying in 1 742. But, whenever it was completed, 
we are inclined to think that it was planned and 
begun before Joseph- Andrews was published, as 
it is in the highest degree improbable that Field- 
ing, always carefully watching the public taste, 
would have followed up that fortunate adventure 
in a new direction by a work so entirely different 
from it as Jonathan Wild. 

A second edition of the Miscellanies appeared 
in the same year as the first, namely in 1745- 
From this date until the publication of Tom Jones 
in 1749, Fielding produced no work of signal 
importance, and his personal history for the next 
few years is exceedingly obscure. We are in- 
clined to suspect that this must have been the 
most trying period of his career. His health was 
shattered, and he had become a martyr to gout, 
which seriously interfered with the active practice 



146 Henry Fielding 

of his profession. Again, ** about this time/' says 
Murphy vaguely, after speaking of the Wedding 
Day, he lost his first wife. That she was alive 
in the winter of 1742-3 is clear, for, in the Pref- 
ace to the Miscellanies, he describes himself as 
being then laid up, '* with a favourite Child dying 
in one Bed, and my Wife in a Condition very 
little better, on another, attended with other Cir- 
cumstances, which served as very proper Deco- 
rations to such a Scene,'' — by which Mr. 
Keightley no doubt rightly supposes him to refer 
to writs and bailiffs. It must also be assumed 
that Mrs. Fielding was alive when the Preface 
was written, since, in apologising for an apparent 
delay in publishing the book, he says the ** real 
Reason " was *^ the dangerous Illness of one from 
whom I draw [the italics are ours] all the solid 
Comfort of my Life." There is another unmis- 
takable reference to her in one of the minor papers 
in the first volume, viz, that Of the Remedy of 
Affliction for the Loss of our Friends, ''I re- 
member the most excellent of Women, and ten- 
derest of Mothers, when, after a painful and 
dangerous Delivery, she was told she had a 
Daughter, answering; Good God! have I pro- 
duced a Creature who is to undergo what I have 
suffered! Some Years afterwards, I heard the 
same Woman, on the Death of that very Child, 



A Memoir 147 

then one of the loveliest Creatures ever seen, 
comforting herself with reflecting, that her Child 
could never know ivhat it vjas to feel such a Loss 
CLS she then Lanienied,'"^ Were it not for the 
passages already quoted from the Preface, it 
might almost be concluded from the tone of the 
foregoing quotation and the final words of the 
paper, which refer to our meeting with those we 
have lost in Heaven, that Mrs. Fielding was 
already dead. But the use of the word *' draw " 
in the Preface affords distinct evidence to the 
contrary. It is therefore most probable that she 
died in the latter part of 1743, having been long 
in a declining state of health. For a time her 
husband was inconsolable. **The fortitude of 
mind," says Murphy, ** with which he met all the 
other calamities of life, deserted him on this most 
trying occasion." His grief was so vehement 
*• that his friends began to think him in danger of 
losing his reason." ^ 

That Fielding had depicted his first wife in 
Sophia Western has already been pointed out, 
and we have the authority of Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu and Richardson for saying that she was 
afterwards reproduced in Amelia, *' Amelia," 
says the latter, in a letter to Mrs. Donnellan, 
**even to her noselessness, is again his first 

« Miscellanies f 1743, i. 319. * Works, 1 7 62, i. 38. 



148 Henry Fielding 

wife." Some of her traits, too, are to be de- 
tected in the Mrs. Wilson of Joseph Andrews, 
But, beyond these indications, we hear little about 
her. Almost all that is definitely known is con- 
tained in a passage of the admirable Introductory 
Anecdotes contributed by Lady Louisa Stuart to 
Lord Wharncliffe's edition of Lady Mary Wort- 
ley Montagu's Letters and Works, This account 
was based upon the recollections of Lady Bute, 
Lady Mary's daughter.^ 

** Only those persons [says Lady Louisa Stuart] 
are mentioned here of whom Lady Bute could 
speak from her own recollection or her mother's 
report. Both had made her well informed of every 
particular that concerned her relation Henry 
Fielding ; nor was she a stranger to that beloved 
first wife whose picture he drew in his Amelia, 
where, as she said, even the glowing language he 
knew how to employ did not do more than justice 
to the amiable qualities of the original, or to her 
beauty, although this had suffered a little from the 
accident related in the novel, — a frightful over- 
turn, which destroyed the gristle of her nose.'^ 

1 Correspondence y 1804, iv. 60. 

2 That any one could have remained lovely after such a 
catastrophe is difficult to believe. But probably Lady Bute 
(or Lady Louisa Stuart) exaggerated its effects; for — to 
say nothing of the fact that, throughout the novel, Amelia's 



A Memoir 149 

He loved her passionately, and she returned his 
affection ; yet led no happy life, for they were al- 
most always miserably poor, and seldom in a state 
of quiet and safety. All the world knows what was 
his imprudence ; if ever he possessed a score of 
pounds, nothing could keep him from lavishing 
it idly, or make him think of to-morrow. Some- 
times they were living in decent lodgings with 
tolerable comfort ; sometimes in a wretched gar- 
ret without necessaries ; not to speak of the 
spunging-houses and hiding-places where he was 

beauty is continually commended — in the delightfully 
feminine description which is given of her by Mrs. James in 
Book xi. chap, i., pp. 1 14-15 of the first edition of 1752, 
although she is literally pulled to pieces, there is no refer- 
ence whatever to her nose, which may be taken as proof 
positive that it was not an assailable feature. Moreover, in 
the book as we now have it, Fielding, obviously in deference 
to contemporary criticism, inserted the following specific 
passages : " She was, indeed, a most charming woman ; 
and I know not whether the little scar on her nose did not 
rather add to, than diminish her beauty" (Book iv. chap, 
vii.) ; and in Mrs. James's portrait : " Then her nose, as 
well proportioned as it is, has a visible scar on one side." 
No previous biographer seems to have thought it necessary 
to make any mention of these statements, while Johnson's 
speech about "that vile broken nose, never cured," (Hill's 
Johnsonian Miscellanies , 1897, i* 297), and Richardson's 
coarsely-malignant utterance to Mrs. Donnellan, are every- 
where industriously remembered and repeated. 



150 Henry Fielding 

occasionally to be found. His elastic gaiety of 
spirit carried him through it all ; but, meanwhile, 
care and anxiety were preying upon her more 
delicate mind, and undermining her constitution. 
She gradually declined, caught a fever, and died 
in his arms.'' ^ 

As usual, Mr. Keightley has done his best to 
sift this statement to the utmost. Part of his 
examination may be neglected, because it is based 
upon the misconception that Lord Wharncliffe, 
Lady Mary's greatgrandson, and not Lady Louisa 
Stuart, her granddaughter, was the writer of the 
foregoing account. But as a set-off to the ex- 
treme destitution alleged, Mr. Keightley very 
justly observes that Mrs. Fielding must for some 
time have had a maid, since it was a maid who 
had been devotedly attached to her whom Field- 
ing subsequently married. He also argues that 
*' living in a garret and skulking in out o' the way 
retreats," are incompatible with studying law and 
practising as a barrister. Making every allow- 
ance, however, for the somewhat exaggerated 
way in which those of high rank often speak of 
the distresses of their less opulent kinsfolk, it is 
probable that Fielding's married life was one of 
continual shifts and privations. Such a state of 

1 Le tiers f etc., of Lady Mary Worthy Montagu^ 1 86 1, i. 
105-6. 



A Memoir 151 

things is completely in accordance with his pro- 
fuse nature ^ and his precarious means. Of his 
family by the first Mrs. Fielding no very material 
particulars have been preserved. Writing, in 
November, 1745, in the True Patriot, he speaks 
of having a son and a daughter, but no son by 
his first wife seems to have survived him. The 
late Colonel Chester found the burial of a 
*' James Fielding, son of Henry Fielding/' re- 
corded under date of 19th February, 1736, in the 
register of St. Giles in the Fields ; but it is by no 
means certain that this entry refers to the novel- 
ist. A daughter, Eleanor Harriot, certainly did 
survive him, for she is mentioned in the Voyage 
to Lisbon as being of the party who accompanied 
him. Another daughter, as already stated, prob- 
ably died in the winter of 1742-3 ; and the 
Journey from this World to the Next contains the 
touching reference to this or another child, of 
which Dickens writes so warmly.^ ** I presently/' 
says Fielding, speaking of his entrance into 
Elysium, *' met a little Daughter, whom I had 
lost several Years before. Good Gods ! what 
Words can describe the Raptures, the melting 

* The passage as to his imprudence is, oddly enough, 
omitted from Mr. Keightley^s quotation. 
^ Lttters, 1880, i. 394, 



152 Henry Fielding 

passionate Tenderness, with which we kiss'd 
each other, continuing in our Embrace, with the 
most extatic Joy, a Space, which if Time had 
been measured here as on Earth, could not have 
been less than half a Year/' ^ 

From the death of Mrs. Fielding until the 
publication of the True Patriot \n 1745 another 
comparative blank ensues in Fielding's history ; 
and it can only be filled by the assumption that 
he was still endeavouring to follow his profession 
as a barrister. His literary work seems to have 
been confined to a Preface to the second edition 
of his sister's novel of David Simple, which ap- 
peared in 1744. This, while rendering fraternal 
justice to that now forgotten book, is memorable 
for some personal utterances on Fielding's part. 
In denying the authorship of David Simple, which 
had been attributed to him, he takes occasion to 
appeal against the injustice of referring anony- 
mous works to his pen, in the face of his distinct 
engagement in the Preface to the Miscellanies, 
that he would thenceforth write nothing except 
over his own signature ; and he complains that 
such a course has a tendency to injure him in a 
profession to which *' he has applied with so ar- 
duous and intent a diligence, that he has had no 
leisure, if he had inclination, to compose anything 
1 Miscellanies t 1743, ii. 63. 



A Memoir 153 

of this kind (i. e., David Simple).'' At the same 
time, he formally withdraws his promise, since it 
has in no wise exempted him from the scandal of 
putting forth anonymous work. From other 
passages in this '* Preface,'' it may be gathered 
the immediate cause of irritation was the assign- 
ment to his pen of '^ that infamous paultry libel '^ 
the Causidicade, a satire directed at the law in 
general, and some of the subscribers to the Mis- 
cellanies in particular. **This," he says, *' ac- 
cused me not only of being a bad writer, and a 
bad man, but with downright idiotism, in flying 
in the face of the greatest men of my profession/' 
It may easily be conceived that such a report 
must be unfavourable to a struggling barrister, 
and Fielding's anxiety on this head is a strong 
proof that he was still hoping to succeed at the 
Bar. To a subsequent collection of Familiar 
Letters between the Principal Characters in David 
Simple and some others, he supplied another pref- 
ace three years later, together with five little- 
known epistles which, nevertheless, are not with- 
out evidence of his characteristic touch. ^ 



1 The most characteristic of these — an imitation of a letter 
from a French traveller in England to his friend at Paris — 
was, however, reprinted by Professor Saintsbury in the final 
volume of his edition of Fielding's Works^ xii. 232-242. 



1 54 Henry Fielding 

A life of ups and downs like Fielding's is sel- 
dom remarkable for its consistency. It is there- 
fore not surprising to find that, despite his desire 
in 1744 to cease from writing, he was writing 
again in 1745. The landing of Charles Edward 
once more attracted him into the ranks of jour- 
nalism, on the side of the Government, and gave 
rise to the True Patriot, a weekly paper, the first 
number of which appeared in November. This, 
having come to an end with the Rebellion, was 
succeeded on 5 December, 1747, by the Jaco- 
bite's Journal, supposed to emanate from " John 
Trott-Plaid, Esq.," and intended to push the dis- 
comfiture of Jacobite sentiment still further. It 
is needless to discuss these mainly political efforts 
at any length. They are said to have been 
highly approved by those in power : it is certain 
that they earned for their author the stigma of 
** pensioned scribbler." Both are now very rare ; 
and in Murphy the former is represented by 
twenty-four numbers, the latter by two only. 
The True Patriot contains a dream of London 
abandoned to the rebels, which is admirably 
graphic ; and there is also a prophetic chronicle 
of events for 1746, in which the same idea is 
treated in a lighter and more satirical vein. But 
perhaps the most interesting feature is the reap- 
pearance of Parson Adams, who addresses a 



A Memoir 155 

couple of letters to the same periodical — one on 
the rising generally, and the other on the ** young 
England '' of the day, as exemplified in a very 
offensive specimen he had recently encountered 
at Mr. Wilson's. Other minor points of interest 
in connection with the Jacobite's Journal, are the 
tradition associating Hogarth with the rude 
woodcut headpiece (a Scotch man and woman on 
an ass led by a monk) which surmounted its ear- 
lier numbers, and the genial welcome given in 
No. 5, perhaps not without some touch of 
contrition, to the two first volumes, then just 
published, of Richardson's Clarissa. The pen is 
the pen of an imaginary *' correspondent," but 
the words are unmistakably Fielding's : 

**\Vhen I tell you I have lately received this 
Pleasure [f. e., of reading a new master-piece], 
you will not want me to inform you that I owe it 
to the Author of Clarissa. Such Simplicity, such 
Manners, such deep Penetration into Nature; 
such Power to raise and alarm the Passions, few 
Writers, either ancient or modern, have been 
possessed of. My Affections are so strongly en- 
gaged, and my Fears are so raised, by what I have 
already read, that I cannot express my Eagerness 
to see the rest. Sure this Mr. Richardson is 
Master of all that Art which Horace compares to 
Witchcraft 



IS 6 Henry Fielding 

Pectus inaniter angit, 

Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet 
Ut Magus. — " 1 

Between the discontinuance of the True Patriot 
and the establishment of its successor occurred 
an event, the precise date of which has been 
hitherto unknown, namely, Fielding's second 
marriage. The account given of this by Lady 
Louisa Stuart is as follows : 

'' His [Fielding's] biographers seem to have 
been shy of disclosing that after the death of this 
charming woman [his first wife] he married her 
maid. And yet the act was not so discreditable 
to his character as it may sound. The maid had 
few personal charms, but was an excellent crea- 
ture, devotedly attached to her mistress, and al- 
most broken-hearted for her loss. In the first 
agonies of his own grief, which approached to 
frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along 
with her ; nor solace, when a degree calmer, but 
in talking to her of the angel they mutually re- 
gretted. This made her his habitual confidential 
associate, and in process of time he began to 
think he could not give his children a tenderer 

1 He also refers to Richardson in No. lo of the 
Covent Garden Journal: — " Pleasure (as the ingenious 
Author of Clarissa says of a Story) s/wuld be made 07ily the 
Vehicle of Instruction,^^ 



A Memoir 157 

mother, or secure for himself a more faithful 
housekeeper and nurse. At least this is what he 
told his friends ; and it is certain that her conduct 
as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his 
good opinion." ^ 

It has now been ascertained that the marriage 
took place at St. Bene't's, Paul's Wharf, an ob- 
scure little church in the City, at present sur- 
rendered to a Welsh congregation, but at that 
time, like Mary-le-bone old church, much in re- 
quest for unions of a private character. The 
date in the register is the 27th of November, 1747. 
The second Mrs. Fielding's maiden name, which 
has been hitherto variously reported as Macdon- 
nell, Macdonald, and Macdaniel, is given as 
Mary Daniel,^ and she is further described as ''of 
St. Clement's Danes, Middlesex, Spinster.'' 
Either previous to this occurrence, or immedi- 
ately after it, Fielding seems to have taken two 
rooms in a house in Back Lane, Twickenham, 
*' not far from the site of Copt Hall." ^ In 1872 
this house was still standing, — a quaint old-fash- 



^ Letters, etc., of Lady Mary Worthy Montagu, 1861, i. 
106. 

2 See note to Fielding's letter in Chap. vii. 

3Cobbett's Memorials of Twickenham^ 1872, pp. 52 
and 358. 



iS8 Henry Fielding 

ioned wooden structure ; ' — and from hence, on 
the 25th February, 1748, was baptised the first of 
the novelist's sons concerning whom any definite 
information exists — the William Fielding who, 
like his father, became a Westminster magistrate. 
Beyond suggesting that it may supply a reason 
why, during Mrs. Fielding's life-time, her hus- 
band's earliest biographer made no reference to 
the marriage, it is needless to dwell upon the 
proximity between the foregoing dates. In other 
respects the circumstance now first made public 
is not inconsistent with Lady Louisa Stuart's 
narrative ; and there is no doubts from the refer- 
ences to her in the Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon 
and elsewhere, that Mary Daniel did prove an 
excellent wife, mother, and nurse. Another thing 
is made clear by the date established, and this is 
that the verses ** On Felix ; Marry'd to a Cook- 
Maid " in the Gentleman s Magazine for July, 
1746, to which Mr. Lawrence refers, cannot pos- 
sibly have anything to do with Fielding, although 
they seem to indicate that alliances of the kind 
were not unusual. Perhaps Pamela had made 
them fashionable. On the other hand, the sup- 
posed allusion to Lyttelton and Fielding, to be 
found in the first edition of Peregrine Pickky but 

1 Now it no longer exists, and a row of cottages occupies 
the site. 



A Memoir 159 

afterwards suppressed, receives a certain con- 
firmation. *^ When," says Smollett, speaking of 
the relations of an imaginary Mr. Spondy with 
Gosling Scrag, who is understood to represent 
Lyttelton, '* he is inclined to marry his own cook- 
wench, his gracious patron may condescend to give 
the bride away ; and may finally settle him, in his 
old age, as a trading Westminster justice. " That, 
looking to the facts, Fielding's second marriage 
should have gained the approval and countenance 
of Lyttelton is no more than the upright and hon- 
ourable character of the latter would lead us to 
expect. 

The Jacobite's Journal ceased to appear in No- 
vember, 1748. In the early part of the Decem- 
ber following, the remainder of Smollett's pro- 
gramme came to pass, and by Lyttelton's interest 
Fielding was appointed a Justice of the Peace for 
Westminster. From a letter in the Bedford 
Correspondence^ dated 13th December, 1748,^ 
respecting the lease of a house or houses which 
would qualify him to act for Middlesex, it would 
seem that the county was afterwards added to his 
commission. He must have entered upon his 
office in the first weeks of December, as upon 
the ninth of that month one John Salter was com- 
mitted to the Gatehouse by Henry Fielding, Esq., 
^Bedford Correspondence ^ 1846, i. 588. 



i6o Henry Fielding 

** of Bow Street, Covent Garden, formerly Sir 
Thomas de Veirs." Sir Thomas de Veil, who 
died in 1746, and whose Memoirs had just been 
published, could not, however, have been Field- 
ing's immediate predecessor. 



CHAPTER V 

Fielding and Joseph Warton ; making of the masterpiece ; 
means of existence ; Tom Jones published, 28 February, 
1749; a " new Province of Writing; " construction of the 
plot ; the characters ; Squire Western ; other persons of 
the drama; Tom Jones himself; the author's humour; 
irony, humanity ; reception of the book ; Richardson and 
Aaron Hill's daughters ; translation and illustrators ; 
adaptations for the stage. 

Y\7RITING from Basingstoke to his brother 
^^ Tom, on the 29th October, 1746, Joseph 
Warton thus refers to a visit he paid to Fielding : 
'* I wish you had been with me last week, 
when I spent two evenings with Fielding and his 
sister who wrote David Simple, and you may 
guess I was very well entertained. The lady 
indeed retired pretty soon, but Russell and I sat 
up with the Poet [Warton no doubt uses the 
word here in the sense of ' maker' or ^creator' ] 
till one or two in the morning, and were inex- 
pressibly diverted. I find he values, as he justly 
may, his Joseph Andrews above all his writings : 
he was extremely civil to me, I fancy, on my 
Father's account/' ^ 

^ /. e.y the Rev. Thomas Warton, Vicar of Basingstoke, and 
sometime Professor of Poetry at Oxford. 



1 62 Henry Fielding 

This mention of Joseph Andrews has misled 
some of Fielding's biographers into thinking that 
he ranked that novel above Tom Jones, But, in 
October, 1746, Tom Jones had not been pub- 
lished ; and, from the absence of any reference to 
it by Warton, it is only reasonable to conclude 
that it had not yet assumed a definite form, or 
Fielding, who was by no means uncommunicative, 
would in all probability have spoken of it as an 
effort from which he expected still greater things. 
It is clear, too, that at this date he was staying 
in London, presumably in lodgings with his sister ; 
and it is also most likely that he lived much in 
town when he was conducting the True Patriot 
and the Jacobite's Journal. At other times he 
would appear to have had no settled place of 
abode. There are traditions that Tom Jones was 
composed in part at Salisbury, in a house at the 
foot of Milford Hill ; and again that it was writ- 
ten at Twiverton, or Twerton-on-Avon, near 
Bath, where, as the Vicar pointed out in Notes 
and Queries for March 15th, 1879, there still ex- 
ists a house called Fielding's Lodge, over the 
door of which is a mutilated stone crest. This 
latter tradition is supported by the statement of 
Mr. Richard Graves, author of the Spiritual 
Quixote, and rector, cfr{;a 1750, of the neighbour- 
ing parish of Claverton, who says in his Trifling; 



A Memoir 163 

Anecdotes of the late Ralph Allen, that Fielding 
while at Twerton used to dine almost daily with 
Allen at Prior Park. There are also traces of his 
residence at Widcombe House, Bath, (Mr. Ben- 
net's) ; as also of visits to the seat of Lyttelton's 
father at Hagley in Worcestershire, and to Rad- 
way Grange in Warwickshire, in the dining-room 
of which it is traditionally asserted that he read 
the MS. of his book to Mr. Miller (the owner of 
the house), Lyttelton, and Lord Chatham.^ To- 
wards the close of 1747 he had, as before stated, 
rooms in Back Lane, Twickenham ; and it must 
be to this or to some earlier period that Walpole 
alludes in his Parish Register : ^ 

" Where Fielding met his bunter Muse, 
And, as they quafPd the fiery juice, 
Droll Nature stamp'd each lucky hit 
With unimaginable wit ;" — 

a quatrain in which the last lines excuse the first. 
According to Mr. Cobbett's already-quoted 
Memorials of Tvjickenham, he left that place upon 
his appointment as a Middlesex magistrate, when 
he moved to Bow Street. His house in Bow 
Street belonged to John, Duke of Bedford ; and 
he continued to live in it until a short time before 

' Miller's Rambles rotmd Edge Hills ^ 1 896, 17. 
« Works t 1798, iv., 382-3. 



164 Henry Fielding 

his death. It was subsequently occupied by his 
half-brother and successor, Sir John/ who, writ- 
ing to the Duke in March, 1770, to thank him for 
his munificent gift of an additional ten years to 
the lease, recalls ^^ that princely instance of gen- 
erosity which his Grace shewed to his late brother, 
Henry Fielding." 

What this was, is not specified. It may have 
been the gift of the leases of those tenements on 
the Bedford property which, as explained, were 
necessary to qualify Fielding to act as a Justice 
of the Peace for the county of Middlesex; it 
may even have been the lease of the Bow Street 
house ; or it may have been simply a gift of 
money. But whatever it was, it was something 
considerable. In his appeal to the Duke, at the 
close of the last chapter. Fielding referred to 
previous obligations, and in his dedication of Tom 
Jones to Lyttelton, he returns again to his Grace's 
beneficence. Another person, of whose kind- 
ness grateful but indirect mention is made in the 
same dedication, is Ralph Allen, who^ according 
to Derrick, the Bath M. C., sent the novelist a 

^Bedford Correspondence, 1846, iii. 411. In the riots of 
'80 — as Dickens has not forgotten to note in Barnaby 
Rudge — the house was destroyed by the mob, who burned 
Sir John's goods in the street (^HilVs BoswelVs Johnson^ 
1887, iii. 428, chap. Ixx.). 



A Memoir 165 

present of ;2f 200, before he had even made his 
acquaintance,^ which, from the reference to Al- 
len in Joseph Andrews J probably began before 
1742. Lastly, there is Lyttelton himself, con- 
cerning whom, in addition to a sentence which 
implies that he actually suggested the writing of 
Tom Jones, we have the express statements 
on Fielding's part that ^' without your Assistance 
this History had never been completed," and 
•" I partly owe to you my Existence during great 
Part of the Time which I have employed in com- 
posing it." ^ These words must plainly be ac- 
cepted as indicating pecuniary help ; and, taking 
all things together, there can be little doubt that 
for some years antecedent to his appointment as 
a Justice of the Peace, Fielding was in straitened 
circumstances, and was largely aided, if not 
practically supported, by his friends. Even 
supposing him to have been subsidised by Gov- 
ernment as alleged, his profits from the True 
Patriot and the Jacobite's Journal could not have 
been excessive ; and his gout, of which he speaks 
in one of his letters to the Duke of Bedford,^ 
must have been a serious obstacle in the way of 
his legal labours. 

1 Derrick's Letters, 1767, ii. 95. 

2 Dedication to Tom JoiieSy 1 749, i. iv.-v. 

3 Bedford Correspondence y 1846, i. 588. 



1 66 Henry Fielding 

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundlings was 
published by Andrew Millar on the 28th of Feb- 
ruary, 1749, and its appearance in six volumes, 
i2mo, was announced in the General Advertiser 
of that day's date. There had been no author's 
name on the title page of Joseph Andrews ; but 
Tom Jones was duly described as *'by Henry 
Fielding, Esq.," and bore the motto from 
Horace, seldom so justly applied, of '^ Mores 
hominum multorum vidit,'" The advertisement 
also ingenuously stated that as it was '' impos- 
sible to get Sets bound fast enough to an- 
swer the Demand for them, such Gentlemen 
and Ladies as pleased, might have them sew'd in 
Blue Paper and Boards at the Price of i6s. a 
Set.*" The date of issue sufficiently disposes of 
the statement of Cunningham and others, that 
the book was written at Bow Street. Little 
more than the dedication, which is preface as 
well, can have been produced by Fielding in 
his new home. Making fair allowance for the 
usual tardy progress of a book through the press, 
and taking into consideration the fact that the 
author was actively occupied with his yet unfamil- 
iar magisterial duties, it is most probable that 
the last chapter of Tom Jones had been penned 
before the end of 1748, and that after that time 
it had been at the printer's. For the exact price 



A Memoir 167 

paid to the author by the publisher on this oc- 
casion we are indebted to Horace Walpole, 
who, writing to George Montagu in May, 1749, 
says — ** Millar the bookseller has done very gen- 
erously by him [Fielding] : finding Tom Jones, 
for which he had given him six hundred pounds, 
sell so greatly, he has since given him another 
hundred."^ 

It is time, however, to turn from these par- 
ticulars to Tom Jones itself. In Joseph Andreips, 
Fielding's work had been mainly experimental. 
He had set out with an intention which had un- 
expectedly developed into something else. That 
something else, he had explained, was the comic 
epic in prose. He had discovered its scope and 
possibilities only when it was too late to re-cast 
his original design; and though Joseph Andrews 
has all the freshness and energy of a first attempt 
in a new direction, it has also the manifest disad- 
vantages of a mixed conception and an uncer- 
tain plan. No one had perceived these defects 
more plainly than the author ; and in Tom Jones 
he set himself diligently to perfect his new-found 
method. He believed that he foresaw a ^' new 

1 Fielding's autograph receipt for this sum, dated 1 1 
June, 1748, is in the Huth Collection. It is accompanied 
by the original agreement for writing the book, signed and 
sealed by the author, and dated 5 March, 1749. 



1 68 Henry Fielding 

Province of Writing/' of which he regarded him- 
self with justice as the founder and lawgiver ; 
and in the *^ prolegomenous, or introductory 
Chapters" to each book — those delightful rest- 
ing-spaces where, as George Eliot says, "he 
seems to bring his arm-chair to the proscenium 
and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine 
English"^ — he takes us, as it were, into his con- 
fidence, and discourses frankly of his aims and 
his way of work. He looked upon these little 
'' initial Essays '' indeed, as an indispensable 
part of his scheme. They have given him, says 
he more than once, '* the greatest Pains in com- 
posing" of any part of his book, and he hopes 
that, like the Greek and Latin mottoes in the 
Spectator^ they may serve to secure him against 
imitation by inferior authors.^ Naturally a great 
deal they contain is by this time commonplace, 

^ Middlemarchf 1874, p. 102. Of Fielding's style, in 
wliich he finds " somewhat inexpressibly heartening," Mr. 
Andrew Lang writes happily — *< One seems to be carried 
along, like a swimmer in a strong, clear stream, trustmg 
one's self to every whirl and eddy, with a feeling of safety, 
of comfort or delighted ease in the motion of the elastic 
water" {Letters on Literature, 1889, 38). 

2 Notwithstanding this w^arning, Cumberland (who copied 
so much) copied these in his novel of Hejiry. On the other 
hand, Fielding's French and Polish translators omitted them 
as superfluous. 



A Memoir 169 

although it was unhackneyed enough when Field- 
ing wrote. The absolute necessity in work of 
this kind for genius, learning, and knowledge of 
the world, the constant obligation to preserve 
character and probability — to regard variety and 
the law of contrast : — these are things with which 
the modern tiro (however much he may fail to pos- 
sess or observe them) is now supposed to be at 
least theoretically acquainted. But there are 
other chapters in which Fielding may also be 
said to reveal his personal point of view, and 
these can scarcely be disregarded. His '' Fare,'' 
he says, following the language of the table, is 
** Human Nature," which he shall first present 
** in that more plain and simple manner in which 
it is found in the Country,'' and afterwards 
** hash and ragoo " it with all the high French and 
Italian seasoning of Affectation and Vice which 
Courts and Cities afford."^ His inclination, he 
admits, is rather to the middle and lower classes 
than to 'Uhe highest Life," which he considers 
to present ^^very little Humour or Entertain- 
ment." His characters (as before) are based 
upon actual experience ; or, as he terms it, 
*^ Conversation." He does not propose to pre- 
sent his reader with '* Models of Perfection;" 
he has never happened to meet with those 

1 Tom JoneSy Bk. i., ch. i. 



lyo Henry Fielding 

** faultless Monsters." He holds that mankind 
is constitutionally defective, and that a single 
bad act does not, of necessity, imply a bad na- 
ture. He has also observed, without surprise, 
that virtue in this world is not always '' the cer- 
tain Road to Happiness," nor '' Vice to Misery." 
In short, having been admitted ** behind the 
Scenes of this Great Theatre of Nature," he 
paints humanity as he has found it, extenuating 
nothing, nor setting down aught in malice, but 
reserving the full force of his satire and irony for 
affectation and hypocrisy. His sincere endeav- 
our, he declares in his dedication to Lyttelton, 
has been *'to recommend Goodness and Inno- 
cence,'' and promote the cause of religion and 
virtue. And he has all the consciousness that 
what he is engaged upon is no ordinary enter- 
prise. He is certain that his pages will outlive 
both '* their own infirm Author'' and his ene- 
mies ; and he appeals to Fame to solace and re- 
assure him — 

^^Come, bright Love of Fame," — says the 
beautiful 'invocation" which begins the thir- 
teenth Book, — * inspire my glowing Breast: 
Not thee I call, who over swelling Tides of 
Blood and Tears, dost bear the Heroe on to 
Glory, while Sighs of Millions waft his spread- 
ing Sails ; but thee, fair, gentle maid, whom 



A Memoir 171 

Mnesis, happy Nymph, first on the Banks of 
Hebrus didst produce. Thee, whom Mceonia 
educated, whom Mantua charmed, and who, on 
that fair Hill which overlooks the proud Metrop- 
olis of Britain^ sat, with thy Milton, sweetly tun- 
ing the Heroic Lyre ; fill my ravished Fancy 
with the Hopes of charming Ages yet to come. 
Foretel me that some tender Maid, whose 
Grandmother is yet unborn^ hereafter, when, un- 
der the fictitious Name of Sophia, she reads the 
real Worth which once existed in my Charlotte, 
shall, from her sympathetic Breast, send forth 
the heaving Sigh. Do thou teach me not only 
to foresee, but to enjoy, nay, even to feed on 
future Praise. Comfort me by a solemn Assur- 
ance, that when the little Parlour in which I sit 
at this Instant, shall be reduced to a worse fur- 
nished box, I shall be read, with Honour, by those 
who never knew nor saw me, and whom I shall 
never know nor see.""^ 

With no less earnestness, after a mock apos- 
trophe to Wealth, he appeals to Genius : 

*' Teach me (he exclaims), which to thee is no 
difficult Task, to know Mankind better than they 
know themselves. Remove that Mist which 
dims the Intellects of Mortals, and causes them 
to adore Men for their Art, or to detest them for 

iTom Jones, Bk. xiii., ch. i. 



172 Henry Fielding 

their Cunning in deceiving others, when they 
are, in Reality, the Objects only of Ridicule, for 
deceiving themselves. Strip off the thin Dis- 
guise of Wisdom from Self-Conceit, of Plenty 
from Avarice, and of Glory from Ambition. 
Come thou, that hast inspired thy Aristophanes^ 
thy Lucian, thy Cervantes, thy Rabelais, thy Mo- 
litre, thy Shakespeare, ihy Swift, ihy Marivaux, fill 
my Pages w^ith Humour, till Mankind learn the 
Good-Nature to laugh only at the Follies of 
others, and the Humility to grieve at their own.''^ 
From the little group of immortals w^ho are 
here enumerated, it may be gathered with whom 
Fielding sought to compete, and with whom he 
hoped hereafter to be associated. His hopes 
were not in vain. Indeed, in one respect, he 
must be held to have even outrivalled that par- 
ticular predecessor with whom he has been often- 
est compared. Like Don Quixote, Tom Jones is 
the precursor of a new order of things, — the 
earliest and freshest expression of a new depar- 
ture in art. But while Tom Jones is, to the full, 
as amusing as Don Quixote, it has the advantage 
of a greatly superior plan, and an interest more 
skillfully sustained. The incidents which, in 
Cervantes, simply succeed each other like the 
scenes in a panorama, are, in Tom Jones, but 
1/3. 



A Memoir 173 

parts of an organised and carefully-arranged pro- 
gression towards a foreseen conclusion. As the 
hero and heroine cross and re-cross each other's 
track, there is scarcely an episode which does 
not aid in the moving forward of the story. Lit- 
tle details rise lightly and naturally to the surface 
of the narrative, not more noticeable at first than 
the most everyday occurrences, and a few pages 
farther on become of the greatest importance. 
The hero makes a mock proposal of marriage to 
Lady Bellaston. It scarcely detains attention, 
so natural an expedient does it appear, and be- 
hold in a chapter or two it has become a terrible 
weapon in the hands of the injured Sophia 1 
Again, when the secret of Jones' birth ^ is finally 
disclosed, we look back and discover a hundred 
little premonitions which escaped us at first, but 
which, read by the light of our latest knowledge, 
assume a fresh significance. At the same time, 
it must be admitted that the over-quoted and 
somewhat antiquated dictum of Coleridge, by 
which Tom /ones is grouped with the Alchemist 

» Much ink has been shed respecting Fielding's reason for 
making his hero illegitimate. But may not "The History 
of Tom Jones, a Foundliiig^^ have had no subtler origin 
than the recent establishment of the Foundling Hospital, of 
which Fielding had written in the ChaittpioUy and in which 
his friend Hogarth was interested ? 



174 Henry Fielding 

and CEdipus Tyrannusj as one of the three most 
perfect plots in the world, requires revision. 
However justified by precedent, it is impossible 
to apply the term '* perfect" to a work which 
contains such an inexplicable stumbling-block as 
the Man of the HilFs story. Then again, prog- 
ress and animation alone will not make a perfect 
plot, unless probability be superadded. And 
although it cannot be said that Fielding disre- 
gards probability, he certainly strains it consider- 
ably. Money is conveniently lost and found ; 
the naivest coincidences continually occur; peo- 
ple turn up in the nick of time at the exact spot 
required, and develop the most needful (but en- 
tirely casual) relations with the characters. 
Sometimes an episode is so inartistically intro- 
duced as to be almost clumsy. Towards the end 
of the book, for instance, it has to be shown 
that Jones has still some power of resisting 
temptation, and he accordingly receives from 
a Mrs. Arabella Hunt, a written offer of her 
hand, which he declines. Mrs. Hunt's name 
has never been mentioned before, nor, after this 
occurrence, is it mentioned again. But in the 
brief fortnight which Jones has been in town, 
with his head full of Lady Bellaston, Sophia, and 
the rest, we are to assume that he has unwittingly 
inspired her with so desperate a passion that she 



A Memoir 175 

proposes and is refused — all in a chapter. Im- 
perfections of this kind are more worthy of con- 
sideration than some of the minor negligences 
which criticism has amused itself by detecting in 
this famous book. Such, among others, is the 
discovery made by a writer in the Genilemans 
Maga:{ine^ that in one place winter and summer 
come too close together; or the '* strange speci- 
men of oscitancy" which another (it is, in fact, 
Mr. Keightley) considers it worth while to re- 
cord respecting the misplacing of the village of 
Hambrook. To such trifles as these last the pre- 
cept of non offendar maculis may safely be applied, 
although Fielding, wiser than his critics, seems 
to have foreseen the necessity for still larger 
allowances : 

** Cruel indeed," says he in his proemium to 
Book XL, ** would it be, if such a Work as this 
History, which hath employed some Thousands 
of Hours in the composing, should be liable to 
be condemned, because some particular Chapter, 
or perhaps Chapters, may be obnoxious to very 
just and sensible Objections. . . . To write 
within such severe Rules as these, is as impos- 
sible as to live up to some splenetic Opinions ; and 
if we judge according to the Sentiments of some 
Critics, and of some Christians, no Author will 
be saved in this World, and no Man in the next." 



176 Henry Fielding 

Notwithstanding its admitted superiority to 
Joseph Andrews as a work of art, there is no male 
character in Tom Jones which can compete with 
Parson Adams — none certainly which we regard 
with equal admiration. Allworthy, excellent 
compound of Lyttelton and Allen though he be, 
remains always a little stiff and cold in compari- 
son with the 'Reined humanity" around him. 
V/e feel of him, as of another impeccable person- 
age, that we '^ cannot breathe in that fine air, 
That pure severity of perfect light,'' and that we 
want the '^ warmth and colour'' w^hich we find in 
Adams. AUworthy is a type rather than a char- 
acter — a fault which also seems to apply to that 
Molieresque hypocrite, the younger Blifil. 
Fielding seems to have welded this latter to- 
gether, rather than to have fused him entire, and 
the result is a certain lack of verisimilitude, 
which makes us wonder how his pinchbeck pro- 
fessions and vamped-up virtues could deceive so 
many persons. On the other hand, his father, 
Captain John Blifil, has all the look of life. Nor 
can there be any doubt about the vitality of 
Squire Western. Whether the germ of his char- 
acter be derived from Addison's Tory Foxhunter 
or not, it is certain that Fielding must have had 
superabundant material of his own from which to 
model this thoroughly representative, and at the 



A Memoir 177 

same time, completely individual character. 
Western has all the rustic tastes, the narrow prej- 
udices, the imperfect education, the unreasoning 
hatred to the court, which distinguished the Jaco- 
bite country gentleman of the Georgian era ; but 
his divided love for his daughter and his horses, 
his good-humour and his shrewdness, his foam- 
ing impulses and his quick sudsidings, his tears, 
his oaths, and his barbaric dialect, are all essen- 
tial features in a personal portrait. When Jones 
has rescued Sophia, he will give him all his stable, 
the Chevalier and Miss Slouch excepted ; when 
he finds he is in love with her, he is in a frenzy 
to ''get at un^' and ''spoil his Caterwauling." 
He will have the surgeon's heart's blood if he 
takes a drop too much from Sophia's w^hite arm ; 
when she opposes his wishes as to Blifil, he will 
turn her into the street with no more than a 
smock, and give his estate to the ''-{inking 
Fund." Throughout the book he is qualis ab 
incepio, — boisterous, brutal, jovial, and inimi- 
table ; so that when finally in '' Chapter the 
Last,'' we get that pretty picture of him in Sophy's 
nursery, protesting that the tattling of his little 
granddaughter is ** sweeter Music than the finest 
Cry of Dosg in England,'^ we part with him al- 
most with a feeling of esteem. Scott seems to 
have thought it unreasonable that he should have 



178 Henry Fielding 

** taken a beating so unresistingly from the friend 
of Lord Fellamar,*' and even hints that the pas- 
sage is an interpolation, although he wisely re- 
frains from suggesting by whom, and should have 
known that it was in the first edition. With all 
deference to so eminent an authority, it is impos- 
sible to share his hesitation. Fielding was fully 
aware that even the bravest have their fits of 
panic. It must besides be remembered that Lord 
Fellamar's friend was not an effeminate dandy, 
but a military man — probably a professed sabreur, 
if not a salaried bully like Captain Stab in the 
Rake's Progress ; that he was armed with a stick 
and Western was not ; and that he fell upon him 
in the most unexpected manner, in a place where 
he was wholly out of his element. It is incon- 
ceivable that the sturdy squire, with his faculty 
for distributing*^ Flicks '' and *' Dowses," — who 
came so valiantly to the aid of Jones in his battle- 
royal with Blifil and Thwackum, — was likely, un- 
der any but very exceptional circumstances, to be 
dismayed by a cane. It was the exceptional 
character of the assault which made a coward of 
him ; and Fielding, who had the keenest eye for 
inconsistencies of the kind, knew perfectly well 
what he was doing. 

Of the remaining personages of the story- — the 
swarming individualities with which the book is 



A Memoir 179 

literally **all alive/' as Lord Monboddo said — it 
is impossible to give any adequate account. 
Fev^ of them, if any, are open to the objection 
already pointed out with respect to Allworthy 
and the younger Blifil, and most of them bear 
signs of having been closely copied from living 
models. Parson Thwackum, with his Antino- 
mian doctrines^ his bigotry, and his pedagogic no- 
tions of justice ; Square the philosopher, with his 
faith in human virtue (alas 1 poor Square), and 
his cuckoo-cry about *' the unalterable Rule of 
Right and the eternal Fitness of Things ; '' Par- 
tridge — the unapproachable Partridge, — with his 
superstition, his vanity, and his perpetual Infan- 
dum regina, but who, notwithstanding all his 
cheap Latinity, cannot construe an unexpected 
phrase of Horace ; Ensign Northerton, with his 
vague and disrespectful recollections of 
'* Homo ;" young Nightingale and Parson Sup- 
ple : — each is a definite character bearing upon 
his brow the mark of his absolute fidelity to 
human nature. Nor are the female actors less 
accurately conceived. Starched Miss Bridget 
Allworthy, with her pinched Hogarthian face ; 
Miss Western, with her disjointed diplomatic jar- 
gon ; that budding Slipslop, Mrs. Honour; 
worthy Mrs. Miller^ Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Mrs. 
Waters, Lady Bellaston, — all are to the full as 



i8o Henry Fielding 

real. Lady Bellaston especially, deserves more 
than a word. Like Lady Booby in yos^p/i An- 
drews, she is not a pleasant character ; but the 
picture of the fashionable demirep, cynical, sen- 
sual, and imperious, has never been drawn more 
vigorously, or more completely — even by Balzac. 
Lastly, there is the adorable Sophia herself, whose 
pardon should be asked for naming her in such 
close proximity to her frailer sister. Byron calls 
her (perhaps with a slight suspicion of exigence 
of rhyme) too "' emphatic ; '' meaning, apparently, 
to refer to such passages as her conversation with 
Mrs. Fitzpatrick, etc. But the heroine of Field- 
ing's time — a time which made merry over a 
lady's misadventures in horsemanship, and sub- 
jected her to such atrocities as those of Lord 
Fellamar — required to be strongly moulded ; and 
Sophia Western is pure and womanly, in spite of 
her unfavourable surroundings. She is a charm- 
ing example — the first of her race — of an unsen- 
timentalised flesh-and-blood heroine ; and Time 
has bated no jot of her frank vitality or her 
healthy beauty. Her descendants in the modern 
novel are far more numerous than the family 
which she bore to the fortunate — the too fortu- 
nate—Mr. Jones. 

And this reminds us that in the foregoing enu- 
meration we have left out Hamlet. In truth, it 



A Memoir i8i 

is by no means easy to speak of this good-look- 
ing^ but very unheroic hero. Lady Mary, employ- 
ing, curiously enough^ the identical phrase which 
Fielding has made one of his characters apply to 
Jones, goes so far as to call him a *' sorry scoun- 
drel ; " ^ and eminent critics have dilated upon his 
fondness for drink and play. But it is a notable 
instance of the way in which preconceived at- 
tributes are gradually attached to certain char- 
acters, that there is in reality little or nothing to 
show that he was either sot or gamester. With 
one exception, when, in the joy of his heart at 
his benefactor's recovery, he takes too much wine 
(and it may be noted that on the same occasion 
the Catonic Thwackum drinks considerably 
more), there is no evidence that he was specially 
given to tippling, even in an age of hard drinkers, 
while of his gambling there is absolutely no trace 
at all. On the other hand, he is admittedly 
brave, generous, chivalrous, kind to the poor, and 
courteous to women. What, then, is his cardinal 
defect ? The answer lies in the fact that Field- 
ing, following the doctrine laid down in his initial 
chapters, has depicted him under certain condi- 
tions (in which, it is material to note, he is al- 
ways rather the tempted than the tempter), with 
an unvarnished truthfulness which to the pure- 
1 Letters, etc., i86i, ii. 280. 



i82 Henry Fielding 

minded is repugnant, and to the prurient indecent. 
Remembering that he too had been young, and 
reproducing, it may be, his own experiences, he 
exhibits his youth as he had found him — a '* pie- 
bald miscellany," — 

«* Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire ; " 

and, to our modern ideas, when no one dares, as 
Thackeray complained, ^^ to depict to his utmost 
power a Man,'' the spectacle is discomforting. 
Yet those who look upon human nature as keenly 
and unflinchingly as Fielding did, knowing how 
weak and fallible it is, — how prone to fall away 
by accident or passion, — can scarcely deny the 
truth of Tom Jones. That such a person cannot 
properly serve as a hero now is rather a question 
of our time than of Fielding's, and it may safely 
be set aside. One objection which has been 
made, and made with reason, is that Fielding, 
while taking care that Nemesis shall follow his 
hero's lapses, has spoken of them with too much 
indulgence, or rather without sufficient excuse. 
Coleridge, who was certainly not squeamish, 
seems to have felt this when, in a MS. note^ in 

1 These notes were communicated by Mr. James Gillman 
to The Literary Remains of Sa7?iuel Taylor Coleridge, pub- 
lished by H. N. Coleridge in 1836. The book in which 



A Memoir 183 

the well-known British Museum edition, he 
says : 

''Even in the most questionable part of Tom 
Jones [i.^., the Lady Bellaston episode, chap. ix. 
Book XV.], I cannot but think after frequent re- 
flection on it, that an additional paragraph, more 
fully & forcibly unfolding Tom Jones's sense of 
self-degradation on the discovery of the true char- 
acter of the relation, in which he had stood to 
Lady Bellaston — & his awakened feeling of the 
dignity and manliness of Chastity — would have 
removed in great measure any just objection, at 
all events relating to Fielding himself, by taking 
in the state of manners in his time." 

Another point suggested by these last lines 
may be touched en passant. Lady Bellaston as 
Fielding has carefully explained (chap. i. Book 
xiv.), was not a typical, but an exceptional, mem*- 
ber of society ; ^ and although there were eight- 
eenth-century precedents for such alliances (e.g., 
they were made, (it is the four volume edition of 1773, and 
has Gillman's book-plate), is now in the British Museum. 
The above transcript is from the MS. 

1 She has sometimes been identified with Ethelreda or 
Audrey Harrison, Viscountess Townshend, also supposed 
by many to be the original of Lady Tempest in Coventry's 
Pompey the Little^ I75i> which, by the way, was dedicated 
to Fielding. These suggestions are ingenious rather than 
instructive. 



184 Henry Fielding 

Miss Edwards and Lord Anne Hamilton, Mrs. 
Upton and General Braddock,) it is a question 
whether in a picture of average English life it was 
necessary to deal with exceptions of this kind, or, 
at all events, to exemplify them in the principal 
personage. But the discussion of this subject 
would prove interminable. Right or wrong, 
Fielding has certainly suffered in popularity for 
his candour in this respect, since one of the 
wisest and wittiest books ever written cannot, 
without hesitation, be now placed in the hands 
of women or very young people. Moreover, 
this same candour has undoubtedly attracted to its 
pages many, neither young nor women, whom its 
wit finds unintelligent, and its wisdom leaves un- 
concerned. 

But what a brave wit it is, what a wisdom after 
all, that is contained in this wonderful novel I 
Where shall we find its like for richness of re- 
flection — for inexhaustible good-humour — for 
large and liberal humanity 1 Like Fontenelle, 
Fielding might fairly claim that he had never cast 
the smallest ridicule upon the most infinitesimal 
of virtues ; it is against hyprocrisy, affectation, 
insincerity of all kinds, that he wages war. And 
what a keen and searching observation, — what a 
perpetual faculty of surprise, — what an endless va- 
riety of method I Take the chapter headed ironic- 



A Memoir 185 

ally A Receipt to regain the lost Affections of a 
Wife, m which Captain John Blifil gives so striking 
an example of Mr. Samuel Johnson's just published 
Vanity of Human Wishes, by dying suddenly of 
apoplexy while he is considering what he will do 
with Mr. Allworthy's property (when it reverts 
to him) ; or that admirable scene, commended by 
Macaulay, of Partridge at the Playhouse, which 
is none the worse because it has just a slight look 
of kinship with that other famous visit which Sir 
Roger de Coverley paid to Philips's Distrest 
Mother, Or take again, as utterly unlike either 
of these, that burlesque Homeric battle in the 
churchyard, where the ** sweetly-winding Stour " 
stands for '* reedy Simois/' and the bumpkins 
round for Greeks and Trojans 1 Or take yet 
once more, though it is woful work to offer bricks 
from this edifice which has already (in a sense) 
outlived the Escorial/ the still more diverse pas- 
sage which depicts the changing conflict in Black 
George's mind as to whether he shall return to 
Jones the sixteen guineas that he has found : 

^^ Black George having received the Purse, set 
forward towards the Alehouse ; but in the Way 
a Thought occurred whether he should not detain 
this Money likewise. His Conscience, how- 

^ The Escorial, it will be remembered, was partially 
burned in 1872. 



1 86 Henry Fielding 

ever, immediately started at this Suggestion, and 
began to upbraid him with Ingratitude to his 
Benefactor. To this his Avarice answered, 
* That his conscience should have considered that 
Matter before, when he deprived poor Jones of 
his 500I. That having quietly acquiesced in what 
was of so much greater Importance, it was ab- 
surb, if not downright Hypocrisy, to affect any 
Qualms at this Trifle.' — In return to which, Con- 
science, like a good Lawyer, attempted to dis- 
tinguish between an absolute Breach of Trust, as 
here where the Goods were delivered, and a bare 
Concealment of what was found, as in the former 
Case. Avarice presently treated this with Ridi- 
cule, called it a Distinction without a Difference, 
and absolutely insisted, that when once all Pre- 
tensions of Honour and Virtue were given up in 
any one Instance, that there was no Precedent 
for resorting to them upon a second Occasion. 
In short, poor Conscience had certainly been de- 
feated in the Argument, had not Fear stept in to 
her Assistance, and very strenuously urged, that 
the real Distinction between the two Actions, 
did not lie in the different degrees of Honour, 
but of Safety: For that the secreting the ^ool. 
was a matter of very little Hazard; whereas the 
detaining the sixteen Guineas was liable to the 
utmost Danger of Discovery. 



A Memoir 187 

** By this friendly Aid of Fear, Conscience 
obtained a compleat Victory in the mind of Bldck 
George, and after making him a few Compliments 
on his Honesty, forced him to deliver the Money 
to Jones,'' 

When one remembers that this is but one of 
many such passages, and that the book, notwith- 
standing the indulgence claimed by the author in 
the Preface, and despite a certain hurry at the 
close, is singularly even in its workmanship, it 
certainly increases our respect for the manly 
genius of the writer, who, amid all the distrac- 
tions of ill-health and poverty, could find the 
courage to pursue and perfect such a conception. 
It is true that both Cervantes and Bunyan wrote 
their masterpieces in the confinement of a prison. 
But they must at least have enjoyed the seclu- 
sion so needful to literary labour ; while Tom 
Jones was written here and there, at all times 
and in all places, with the dun at the door and the 
wolf not very far from the gate.^ 

The little sentence quoted some pages back 
from Walpole's letters is sufficient proof, if proof 
were needed, of its immediate success. Andrew 
Millar was shrewd enough, despite his constitu- 

^ Salisbury, in the neighbourhood of which Tom Jojies is laid, 
claims the originals of some of the characters. Thwackum 
is said to have been Hele, a schoolmaster ; Square, Thomas 



1 88 Henry Fielding 

tional confusion, and he is not likely to have 
given an additional ;^ioo to the author of any 
book without good reason. The indications of 
that success are not, however, very plainly im- 
pressed upon the public prints. The Gentleman's 
Magazine for 1749, which, as might be expected 
from Johnson's connection with it, contains am- 
ple accounts of his own tragedy of Irene and 
Richardson's recently-published Clarissa^ has no 
notice of Tom Jones, nor is there even any adver- 
tisement of the second edition issued in the same 
year. But, in the emblematic frontispiece, it 
appears under Clarissa (and sharing with that 
work a possibly unintended proximity to a sprig 
of laurel stuck in a bottle of Nantes), among a 
pile of the books of the year; and in the ** poet- 
ical essays" for August, one *^Tho. Cawthorn" 
breaks into rhymed panegyric. **Sick of her 
fools," sings this enthusiastic but scarcely lucid 
admirer — 

" Sick of her fools, great Nature broke the jest, 
And Irtith held out each character to test, 
When Genius spoke : Let Fieldmg take the pen ! 
Life dropt her mask, and all mankind were men." 

There were others^ however, who would 
scarcely have echoed the laudatory sentiments of 

Chubb, the Deist (d. 1747) ; and Dowling the lawyer, a 
person named Stillingfleet. 



A Memoir 189 

Mr. Cawthorn. Among these was again the ex- 
cellent Richardson, who seems to have been 
wholly unpropitiated by the olive branch held out 
to him in the Jacobite's Journal. His vexation at 
the indignity put upon Pamela by Joseph An- 
drews was now complicated by a twittering jeal- 
ousy of the ** spurious brat," as he obligingly 
called Tom Jones, whose success had been so 
^* unaccountable/' In these circumstances, some 
of the letters of his correspondents must have 
been gall and wormwood to him. Lady Brad- 
shaigh, for instance, under her pseudonym of 
** Belfour,'' tells him that she is fatigued with the 
very name of the book, having met several young 
ladies who were for ever talking of their Tom 
Jones's, **for so they call their favourites,'' and 
that the gentlemen, on their side, had their So- 
phias, one having gone so far as to give that all- 
popular nam.e to his *' Dutch mastiff puppy." 
But perhaps the best and freshest exhibition (for, 
as far as can be ascertained, it has never hitherto 
been made public) of Richardson's attitude to his 
rival is to be found in a little group of letters in 
the Forster collection at South Kensington. The 
writers are Aaron Hill and his daughters; but 
the letters do not seem to have been known to 
Mrs. Barbauld, whose last communication from 
Hill is dated November 2, 1748. Nor are they 



190 Henry Fielding 

to be found in Hill's own Correspondence. The 
ladies, it appears, had visited Richardson at 
Salisbury Court in 1741, and were great ad- 
mirers of Pamela^ and the ** divine Clarissa.'^ 
Some months after Tom Jones was published, 
Richardson (not having yet brought himself to 
read the book) had asked them to do so, and 
give him their opinion as to its merits. There- 
upon Minerva and Astraea, despite their descrip- 
tion of themselves as ''Girls of an untittering 
Disposition," must have been very bright and 
lively young persons, began seriously ''to lay 
their two wise heads together'' and "hazard this 
Discovery of their Emptiness." Having " with 
much ado got over some Reluctance, that was 
bred by a familiar coarseness in the Title,''^ they 
report " much (masqu'd) merit" in the "whole 
six volumes" — '^a double merit, both of Head, 
and Heart.'" Had it been the latter only it 
would be more worthy of Mr. Richard- 
son's perusal ; but, say these considerate pio- 
neers, if he does spare it his attention, he must 
only do so at his leisure, for the author ^' intro- 
duces All his Sections (and too often interweaves 
thes^noMsBody of his meanings), with long Runs 
of bantering Levity, which his [ Fielding's] Good 
sense may suffer by Effect of." " It is true (they 
continue), he seems to wear this Lightness, as a 



A Memoir 191 

grave Head sometimes wears a Feather: which 
tho' He and Fashion may consider as an orna- 
ment, Reflection will condemn, as a Disguise, 
and covering,^' Then follows a brief excursus, 
intended for their correspondent's special conso- 
lation, upon the folly of treating grave things 
lightly ; and with delightful sententiousness the 
letter thus concludes : 

** Meanwhile, it is an honest pleasure which 
we take in adding, that (exclusive of one wild, 
detach'd, and independent Story of a Man of the 
Hill, that neither brings on Anything, nor rose 
from Anything that went before it) All the 
changeful windings of the Author's Fancy carry 
on a course of regular Design ; and end in an 
extremely moving Close, where Lives that seem'd 
to w^ander and run different ways, meet, All, in an 
instructive Center. 

'* The whole piece consists of an inventive 
Race of Disappointments and Recoveries. It 
excites Curiosity, and holds it watchful. It has 
just and pointed Satire ; but it is a partial Satire, 
and confin'd too narrowly: It sacrifices to Au- 
thority, and Interest. Its Events reward Sincer- 
ity, and punish and expose Hypocrisy; shew 
Pity and Benevolence in amiable Lights, and 
Avarice and Brutality in very despicable ones. 
In every Part It has Humanity for its Intention: 



192 Henry Fielding 

In too many, it seems wantoner than It was 
meant to be : It has bold shocking Pictures ; and 
(I fear)^ not unresembling ones, in high Life, 
and in low. And (to conclude this too adven- 
turous Guess-work, from a Pair of forward Bag- 
gages) would, every where, (we think,) deserve 
to please, — if stript of what the Author thought 
himself most sure to please hy, 

^' And thus, Sir, we have told you our sincere 
opinion of Tom Jones, . . . 

" Your most Profest Admirers and most hum- 
ble Servants, 

'* Astrsea ^ 

and [ Hill. 
Minerva 3 

'' Plaistow, the 2yth of Jul/, 1749." 

Richardson's reply to this ingenuous criticism 
is dated the 4th of August. His requesting two 
young women to study and criticise a book which 
he has heard strongly condemned as immoral, — 
his own obvious familiarity with what he has not 
read but does not scruple to censure, — his trans- 
parently jealous anticipation of its author's ability, 
— all this forms a picture so characteristic alike of 

1 The " pen-holder " is the fair Astraea. These were their 
real names. There was a third sister, Urania. 



A Memoir 193 

the man and the time that no apology is needed 
for the following textual extract : 

'• I must confess, that I have been prejudiced 
by the Opinion of Several judicious Friends 
against the truly coarse-titled Tom Jones ; and so 
have been discouraged from reading it. — I was 
told, that it was a rambling Collection of Waking 
Dreams, in which Probability was not observed : 
And that it had a very bad Tendency. And I 
had Reason to think that the Author intended for 
his Second View {\\\% jini, to fill his Pocket, by 
accommodating it to the reigning Taste) in writing 
it, to whiten a vicious character, and to make 
Morality bend to his Practices. What Reason 
had he to make his Tom illegitimate, in an Age 
where Keeping is become a Fashion ? Why did 
he make him a common — What shall I call it ? 
And a Kept Fellow, the Lowest of all Fellows, 
yet in Love with a Young Creature who was 
traping [trapesing?] after him, a Fugitive from 
her Father's House ? — Why did he draw his Her- 
oine so fond, so foolish, and so insipid ? — Indeed 
he has one Excuse — He knows not how to draw 
a delicate Woman — He has not been accustomed 
to such Company, — And is too prescribing, too 
impetuous, too immoral, I will venture to say, to 
take any other Byass than that a perverse and 
crooked Nature has given him ; or Evil Habits, 



194 Henry Fielding 

at least, have confirmed in him. Do Men expect 
Grapes of Thorns, or Figs of Thistles? But, 
perhaps, I think the worse of the Piece because 
I know the Writer, and dislike his Principles both 
Public and Private, tho' I wish well to the Man, 
and Love Four worthy Sisters of his, with whom 
I am well acquainted. And indeed should ad- 
mire him, did he make the Use of his Talents 
which I wish him to make^ For the Vein of Hu- 
mour, and Ridicule, which he is Master of, 
might, if properly turned do great Service to y® 
Cause of Virtue. 

'* But no more of this Gentleman's Work, after 
I have said, That the favourable Things, you say 
of the Piece, will tempt me, if I can find Leisure, 
to give it a Perusal." 

Notwithstanding this last sentence, Richardson 
more than once reverts to Tom Jones before he 
finishes his letter. Its effect upon Minerva and 
Astr^ea is best described in an extract from Aaron 
HilTs reply, dated seven days later (August the 
nth) : 

*' Unfortunate Tom Jones ! how sadly has he 
mortify'd Two sawcy Correspondents of your 
making ! They are with me now : and bid me 
tell you. You have spoil'd 'em Both, for Criticks. 
— Shall I add, a Secret which they did not bid me 
tell you? — They, Both, fairly cr/'i, that You 



A Memoir 195 

shou'd think it possible they cou'd approve of 
Any thing, in Any work, that had an Evil Ten- 
dene/, in any Part or Purpose of it. They main- 
tain their Point so far, however^ as to be con- 
vinc'd they say, that you will disapprove this over- 
rigid Judgment of those Friends, who cou'd not 
find a Thread of Moral Meaning in Tom Jones, 
quite independent of the Levities they justly cen- 
sure. — And, as soon as you have Time to read 
him, for yourself, 'tis there, pert Sluts, they will 
be bold enough to rest the Matter. — Meanwhile, 
they love and honour you and your opinions.'' 

To this the author of C/amsa replied by writing 
a long epistle deploring the pain he had given the 
^* dear Ladies," and minutely justifying his fore- 
gone conclusions from the expressions they had 
used. He refers to Fielding again as *'a very 
indelicate, a very impetuous, an unyielding-spir- 
ited Man ; " and he also trusts to be able to 
'' bestow a Reading" on Tom Jones ; but by a 
letter from Lady Bradshaigh, printed in Barbauld, 
and dated December, 1749, it seems that even at 
that date he had not, or pretended he had not, yet 
done so. In another of the unpublished South 
Kensington letters, from a Mr. Solomon Lowe, 
(the author of a *' Critical Spelling Book"), oc- 
curs the following: — ** I do not doubt" — says 
the writer — ** but all Europe will ring of it ICla- 



196 Henry Fielding 

rissa] : when a Cracker, that was some thous'd 
hours a-composing,^ will no longer be heard, or 
talkt-of/' Richardson, with business-like pre- 
cision, has gravely docketed this in his own hand- 
writing, — ** Cracker, T. Jones/' 

It is unfortunate for Mr. Lowe's reputation as 
a prophet that, after more than one hundred and 
thirty years, this ephemeral firework, as he deemed 
it, should still be sparkling with undiminished 
brilliancy, and to judge by recent additions, is 
selling as vigorously as ever. From the days 
when Lady Mary wrote ^' Ne plus ultra'' in her 
own copy, and La Harpe called it le premier ro- 
man da monde^ (a phrase which, by the way, De 
Musset applies to Clarissa), it has come down to 
us with an almost universal accompaniment of 
praise. Gibbon, Byron, Coleridge, Scott, Dick- 
ens, Thackeray, — have all left their admiration 
on record, — to say nothing of professional critics 
innumerable. As may be seen from the British 
Museum Catalogue, it has been translated into 
French, German, Polish, Dutch, and Spanish. 
Russia and Sweden have also their versions. The 
first French translation, or rather abridgment, by 
M.de La Place was prohibited in France^ (to 
Richardson's delight) by royal decree, an act 

1 Vide Tom Jones, Book xi. chap. i. 

'^Monthly Review^ ^7S^f P* 432* 



A Memoir 197 

which affords another instance, in Scott's words, 
of that '* French delicacy, which, on so many oc- 
casions, has strained at a gnat, and swallowed a 
earner' (t\ g., the novels of M. Crebillon fds). 
La Place's edition (1750) was gracefully illus- 
trated with sixteen plates by Hubert Bourguignon, 
called Gravelot, one of those eighteenth-century 
illustrators whose designs are still the rage in 
Paris. In England, Fielding's best-known pic- 
torial interpreters are Rowlandson and Cruik- 
shank, the latter being by far the more sympa- 
thetic. Stothard also prepared some designs for 
Harrison's Novelisfs Maga:[ine ; but his refined 
and effeminate penc'il w^as scarcely strong enough 
for the task. Hogarth alone could have been the 
ideal illustrator of Henry Fielding ; that is to say 
— if, in lieu of the rude designs he made for 
Tristram Shandy, he could have been induced to 
undertake the work in the larger fashion of the 
Rake's Progress or The Marriage a la Mode. 

As might perhaps be anticipated, Tom Jones 
attracted the dramatist.^ In 1765, one J. H. 

1 It may be added that it also attracted the plagiarist. As 
Pamela had its sequel in Paviela's Conduct in High Life, 
1 741, so Tom Jones was continued in TJie History of Tom 
Jones the Foimdling, in his Married State y 1750. The 
Preface announces, needlessly enough, that «• Henr}- Field- 
ing, Esq., is not the Author of this Book." It deserves no 
serious consideration. The same may be said of the volume 



198 Henry Fielding 

Steffens made a comedy of it for the German 
boards; and in 1782 Desforges based upon it 
another, in five Acts, called Tom Jones d Londres, 
which was acted at the ThMire Frangais, and has 
been warmly praised by La Harpe, especially for 
its Fellamar.^ The book was also turned into a 
comic opera by Joseph Reed in 1769, and played 
at Covent Garden. But its most piquant trans- 
formation is the Comidie lyrique of Poinsinet, 
acted at Paris in 1765-6 to the lively music of 
Philidor. The famous bass, Joseph Caillot, took 
the part of Squire Western, who, surrounded by 
piqueurs, and girt with the conventional cor de 
chasse of the Gallic sportsman, sings the follow- 
ing ariette, diversified with true Fontainebleau 
terms of Venery : 

" D'un Cerf, dix Cors, j'ai connaissance : 
On I'attaque au fort, on le lance ; 

Tous sont pr^ts : 

Piqueurs & Valets 
Suivent les pas de I'ami Jone (sic). 
J'entends crier : Volcelets, Volcelets. 

entitled An Examen of the History of Tom Jones a Found- 
li7tg, 1750. 

1 Raimbach the engraver saw this in 1802, at Picard's 
theatre in the Rue Feydeau, Picard himself playing " Squire 
Western" (Me??ioirs and Recollections, 1843, p. 87). Des- 
forges wrote an inferior sequel in 1787 entitled Tom Jones 
et Fellamar, 



A Memoir 199 

Aussitot j'ordonne 
Que la Meute donne. 
Tayaut, Tayaut, Tayaut. 
Mes chiens decouples I'environnent ; 
Les trompes sonnent : 

* Courage, Amis ; Tayaut, Tayaut.' 
Quelques chiens, que I'ardeur derange, 
Quittent la voye & prennent le change. 

Jones les rassure d'un cri : 

Ourvari, ourvari. 

Accoute, accoute, accoute. 

Au retour nous en revoyons. 

Accoute, ^ Mirmiraut, courons ; 

Tout ^ Griffaut ; 

Y aprds : Tayaut, Tayaut. 

On reprend route, / 

Voil^ le Cerf a I'eau. 

La trompe sonne, 

La Meute donne, 

L'echo resonne, 
Nous pressons les nouveaux relais : 

Volcelets, Volcelets. 

L'animal force succombe. 
Fait un effort, se releve, enfin tombe : 
Et nos chasseurs chantent tous ^ Tenvi : 

* Amis, goutons les fruits de la victoire ; 

* Amis, Amis, celebrons notre gloire. 

* Halali, Fanfare, Halali 
« Halali/ " 
With which triumphant flourish of trumpets 
the present chapter may be fittingly concluded.^ 
* See Appendix No. II. : Fielding and Mrs. Hussey. 



CHAPTER VI 

A visit to Justice Fielding ; chairman of Quarter Sessions, 
12 May, 1749; charge to the Westminster Grand Jury, 
29 June ; case of Bosavern Penlez, July ; Enquiry into 
the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers ^ January, 1751 ; 
the Glastonbury waters ; publication of Ameliay 19 Decem- 
ber ; its characteristics ; its characters and heroine ; her 
portrait; the author's apology for his book; Richardson 
on Fielding; the Covent Garden Journal, 1752; pro- 
posals for translating Lucian ; Examples of the Interpo- 
sition of Providence f A.'prHy 1752 ; Proposals for the Poor^ 
January, 1753; Case of Elizabeth Canning, March. 

TN one of Horace Walpole's letters to George 
^ Montagu, already quoted, there is a descrip- 
tion of Fielding's Bow Street establishment, 
which has attracted more attention than it de- 
serves. The letter is dated May the i8th, 1749, 
and the passage (in Cunningham's edition) runs 
as follows : 

** He [Rigby] and Peter Bathurst ^ t'other 

1 Probably a son of Peter Bathurst (d. 1748), a brother of 
Pope's friend, Allen, Lord Bathurst. Rigby was the 
Richard Rigby whose despicable character is familiar in 
Eighteenth-Century Memoirs. " He died (says Cunning- 
ham) involved in debt, with his accounts as Paymaster of 
the Forces hopelessly unsettled." 



A Memoir 201 

night carried a servant of the lattefs, who had 
attempted to shoot him, before Fielding ; who, 
to all his other vocations, has, by the grace of 
Mr. Lyttelton, added that of Middlesex justice. 
He sent them word he was at supper, that they 
must come next morning. They did not under- 
stand that freedom, and ran up, where they found 
him banqueting with a blind man, a whore, and 
three Irishmen, on some cold mutton and a bone 
of ham, both in one dish, and the dirtiest cloth. 
He never stirred nor asked them to sit. Rigby, 
who had seen him so often come to beg a 
guinea of Sir C. Williams, and Bathurst, at whose 
father's he had lived for victuals, understood that 
dignity as little, and pulled themselves chairs ; 
on which he civilised." 

Scott calls this " a humiliating anecdote ; " and 
both Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Keightley have ex- 
hausted rhetoric in the effort to explain it away. 
As told, it is certainly uncomplimentary; but 
considerable deductions must be made, both for 
the attitude of the narrator and the occasion of 
the narrative. Walpole's championship of his 
friends was notorious ; and his absolute injustice, 
when his partisan spirit was uppermost, is every- 
where patent to the readers of his Letters. In 
the present case he was not of the encroaching 
party ; and he speaks from hearsay solely. But 



30^ Henry Fielding 

his friends had, in his opinion, been outraged by 
a man, who, according to his ideas of fitness, 
should have come to them cap in hand ; and as a 
natural consequence, the story, no doubt exag- 
gerated when it reached him, loses nothing under 
his transforming and malicious pen. Stripped of 
its decorative flippancy, however, there remains 
but little that can really be regarded as ** humili- 
ating." Scott himself suggests, what is most un- 
questionably the case, that the blind man was the 
novelist's half-brother, afterwards Sir John Field- 
ing ; and it is extremely unlikely that the lady so 
discourteously characterised could have been any 
other than his wife, who, Lady Louisa Stuart 
tells us, '' had few personal charms.'' There re- 
main the *' three Irishmen," who may, or may 
not, have been perfectly presentable members of 
society. At all events, their mere nationality, so 
rapidly decided upon, cannot be regarded as a 
stigma. That the company and entertainment 
were scarcely calculated to suit the superfine 
standard of Mr. Bathurst and Mr. Rigby may 
perhaps be conceded. Fielding was by no 
means a rich man, and in his chequered career 
had possibly grown indifferent to minor decencies. 
Moreover, we are told by Murphy that, as a 
Westminster justice, he kept '*his table open to 
those who had been his friends when young, and 



A Memoir 203 

had impaired their own fortunes."^ Thus, it 
must always have been a more or less ragged 
regiment who met about that kindly Bow Street 
board ; but that the fact reflects upon either the 
host or guests cannot be admitted for a moment. 
If the anecdote is discreditable to anyone it is to 
that facile retailer of ana and incorrigible society- 
gossip, Mr. Horace Walpole. 

But while these unflattering tales were told of 
his private life, Fielding was fast becoming emi- 
nent in his public capacity. On the 12th of May, 
1749, he was unanimously chosen chairman of 
Quarter Sessions at Hick's Hall (as the Clerken- 
well Sessions House was then called) ; and on 
the 29th of June following he delivered a charge 
to the Westminster Grand Jury which is usually 
printed with his works, and which is still regarded 
by lawyers as a model exposition.^ It is at first 
a little unexpected to read his impressive and 
earnest denunciations of masquerades and theatres 
(in which latter, by the way, one Samuel Foote 
had very recently been following the example of 
the author of Pasquin), as Sheridan was to do 
later ; but Fielding the magistrate and Fielding 
the playwright were two different persons ; and 
a long interval of changeful experience lay be- 
tween them. In another part of his charge, 

1 Worksy 1762, i. 48. ^ Id. iv. 435-449. 



204 Henry Fielding 

which deals with the offence of libelling, it is 
possible that his very vigorous appeal was not 
the less forcible by reason of the personal at- 
tacks to which he had referred in the Preface to 
David Simple^ the Jacobite's Journal, and else- 
where. His only other literary efforts during 
this year appear to have been a little pamphlet 
entitled A True State of the Case of Bosavern 
Penle\; and a formal congratulatory letter to 
Lyttelton upon his second marriage, in which, 
while speaking gratefully of his own obligations 
to his friend, he endeavours to enlist his sym- 
pathies for Moore the fabulist who was also 
** about to marry." The pamphlet had reference 
to an occurrence which took place in July. 
Three sailors of the '' Grafton'' man-of-war had 
been robbed in a house of ill-fame in the Strand. 
Failing to obtain redress, they attacked the house 
with their comrades, and wrecked it,^ causing a 
** dangerous riot," to which Fielding makes in- 
cidental reference in one of his letters to the 
Duke of Bedford, and which was witnessed by 
John Byron, the poet and stenographer, in whose 
Remains it is described. Bosavern Penlez or 
Pen Lez, who had joined the crowd, and in 

1 This feat, as readers of Goldsmith will doubtless remem- 
ber, was known technically as " tattering a kip," ( Vicar of 
Wakefield, 1766, ii. 12). 



A Memoir 205 

whose possession some of the stolen property 
was found, was tried and hanged in September. 
His sentence, which was considered extremely 
severe, excited much controversy, and the object 
of Fielding's pamphlet was to vindicate the 
justice and necessity of his conviction. 

Towards the close of 1749 Fielding fell 
seriously ill with fever aggravated by gout. It 
was indeed at one time reported that mortifica- 
tion had supervened ; but under the care of Dr. 
Thomson, that dubious practitioner whose treat- 
ment of Winnington in 1746 had given rise to so 
much paper war, he recovered ; and during 1750 
was actively employed in his magisterial duties. 
At this period lawlessness and violence appear to 
have prevailed to an unusual extent in the metrop- 
olis, and the office of a Bow Street justice was 
no sinecure. Reform of some kind was felt on 
all sides to be urgently required ; and Fielding 
threw his two years' experience and his deduc- 
tions therefrom into the form of a pamphlet en- 
titled An Enquiry into the Causes of the late In- 
crease of Robbers, etc,, with some Proposals for 
remedying this growing Evil, It was dedicated 
to the then Lord High Chancellor, Philip Yorke, 
Lord Hardwicke, by whom, as well as by more 
recent legal authorities, it was highly appreciated. 
Like the Charge to the Grand Jury, it is a grave 



2o6 Henry Fielding 

argumentative document, dealing seriously with 
luxury, drunkenness, gaming, and other preva- 
lent vices. Once only, in an ironical passage re- 
specting beaus and fine ladies, does the author 
remind us of the author of Tom Jones. As a 
rule, he is weighty, practical, and learned in the 
law. Against the curse of Gin-drinking, which, 
owing to the facilities for obtaining that liquor, 
had increased to an alarming extent among the 
poorer classes, he is especially urgent and ener- 
getic. He points out that it is not only making 
dreadful havoc in the present, but that it is en- 
feebling the race of the future, and he con- 
cludes — 

*' Some little Care on this Head is surely nec- 
essary : For tho' the Encrease of Thieves, and 
the Destruction of Morality ; though the Loss of 
our Labourers, our Sailors, and our Soldiers, 
should not be sufficient Reasons, there is one 
which seems to be unanswerable, and that is, the 
Loss of our Gin-drinkers : Since, should the 
drinking this Poison be continued in its present 
Height during the next twenty Years, there will, 
by that Time, be very few of the common People 
left to drink it." 

To the appeal thus made by Fielding in 
January, 175 1 , Hogarth added his pictorial protest 
in the following month by his awful plate of Gin 



A Memoir 207 

Lam^ which, if not actually prompted by his 
friend's words, was certainly inspired by the same 
crying evil. One good result of these efforts was 
the ''Bill for restricting the Sale of Spirituous 
Liquors," to which the royal assent was given in 
June, and Fielding's connection with this enact- 
ment is practically acknowledged by Horace 
Walpole in his Memoir es of the Last ten Years of 
the Reign of George IL The law was not wholly 
effectual, and was difficult to enforce ; but it was 
not by any means without its good effects.^ 

Between the publication of the Enquiry and 
that of Amelia there is nothing of importance to 
chronicle except Fielding's connection with one 

1 The Rev. R. Hurd, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, an 
upright and scholarly, but formal and censorious man, whom 
Johnson called a « word-picker," and franker contempora- 
ries " an old maid in breeches," has left a reference to Field- 
ing at this time which is not flattering. <« I dined with him 
[Ralph Allen] yesterday, where I met Mr. Fielding,_a 
poor emaciated, worn-out rake, whose gout and infirmities 
have got the better even of his buffoonery " (Letter to 
Balguy, dated " Inner Temple, 19th March, 175 1.") That 
Fielding had not long before been dangerously ill, and that 
he was a martyr to gout, is fact : the rest is probably no 
more than the echo of a foregone conclusion, based upon 
report, or dislike to his works. Hurd praised Richardson 
and proscribed Sterne. He must have been wholly out of 
sympathy with the author of Tom Jones, 



2o8 Henry Fielding 

of the events of 175 1, the discovery of the 
Glastonbury w^aters. According to the account 
given in the Gentleman s for July in that year, a 
certain Matthew Chancellor had been cured of 
" an asthma and phthisic " of thirty years' stand- 
ing by drinking from a spring near Chain Gate, 
Glastonbury, to which he had (so he alleged) 
been directed in a dream. The spring forthwith 
became famous; and in May an entry in the 
Historical Chronicle for Sunday, the 5th, records 
that above 10,000 persons had visited it, desert- 
ing Bristol, Bath, and other popular resorts. 
Numerous pamphlets were published for and 
against the new waters ; and a letter in their 
favour, which appeared in the London Daily Ad- 
vertiser for the 31st August, signed " Z. Z.,'' is 

** supposed to be wrote" by ''J e F g." 

Fielding was, as may be remembered, a Somer- 
setshire man, Sharpham Park, his birthplace, be- 
ing about three miles from Glastonbury ; and he 
testifies to the *' wonderful Effects of this salu- 
brious Spring '"* in words which show that he had 
himself experienced them. ^* Having seen great 
Numbers of my Fellow Creatures under two of 
the most miserable Diseases human Nature can 
labour under, the Asthma and Evil, return from 
Glastonbury blessed with the Return of Health, 
and having myself been relieved from a Disorder 



A Memoir 209 

which baffled the most skilful Physicians/' justice 
to mankind (he says) obliges him to take notice 
of the subject. The letter is interesting, more as 
showing that, at this time, Fielding's health was 
broken, than as proving the efficacy of the cure ; 
for, whatever temporary relief the waters afforded, 
it is clear (as Mr. Lawrence pertinently remarks) 
that he derived no permanent benefit from them. 
They must, however, have continued to attract 
visitors, as a pump-room was opened in August, 
1753 ; and, although they have now fallen into 
disuse, they were popular for many years. 

But a more important occurrence than the dis- 
covery of the Somersetshire spring is a little an- 
nouncement contained in Sylvanus Urban's list 
of publications for December, 1751, No. 17 of 
which is " Amelia, in 4 books, i2mo ; by Henry 
Fielding, Esq." The publisher, of course, was 
Andrew Millar; and the actual day of issue, as 
appears from the General Advertiser, was Decem- 
ber the 19th, although the title-page, by anticipa- 
tion, bore the date of 1752. There were two mot- 
toes, one of which was the appropriate — 

Felices ter ^ amplius 

Quos irrupt a tenet Copula ; " 

and the dedication, brief and simply expressed, 
was to Ralph Allen. As before, the ^' artful 



2IO Henry Fielding 

aid " of advertisement was invoked to whet the 
public appetite. 

^'To satisfy the earnest Demand of the Pub- 
lick (says Millar), this Work has been printed at 
four Presses ; but the Proprietor notwithstand- 
ing finds it impossible to get them {sic) bound in 
Time, without spoiling the Beauty of the impres- 
sion, and therefore will sell them sew'd at Haif- 
a-Guinea." 

This was open enough ; but, according to 
Scott, Millar adopted a second expedient to as- 
sist Amelia with the booksellers. 

'* He had paid a thousand pounds for the 
copyright ; and when he began to suspect that 
the work would be judged inferior to its pred- 
ecessor, he employed the following stratagem to 
push it upon the trade. At a sale made to the 
booksellers, previous to the publication, Millar 
offered his friends his other publications on the 
usual terms of discount ; but when he came to 
Amelia^ he laid it aside, as a work expected to be 
in such demand, that he could not afford to de- 
liver it to the trade in the usual manner. The 
ruse succeeded— the impression was anxiously 
bought up, and the bookseller relieved from every 
apprehension of a slow sale." ^ 

There were several reasons why — superficially 
» Lives of the Novelists^ 1825, i. 35, 



A Memoir an 

speaking — Amelia should be *' judged inferior to 
its predecessor." That it succeeded Tom Jones 
after an interval of little more than two years and 
eight months would be an important element in 
the comparison, if it were known at all definitely 
what period was occupied in writing Tom Jones, 
All that can be affirmed is that Fielding must- 
have been far more at leisure when he composed 
the earlier work than he could possibly have been 
when filling the onerous office of a Bow Street 
magistrate. But, in reality, there is a much better 
explanation of the superiority of Tom Jones to 
Amelia than the merely empirical one of the time it 
took. Tom Jones, it has been admirably said by a 
French critic, *' est la condensation et le resume 
de toute une existence. C'est le resultat et la 
conclusion de plusieurs ann^es de passions et de 
pensees, la formule derni^re et complete de la 
philosophie personnelle que Ton s'est faite sur 
tout ce que Ton a vu et senti." Such an experi- 
ment, argues Gustave Planche,^ is not twice re- 
peated in a lifetime : the soil which produced so 
rich a crop can but yield a poorer aftermath. 
Behind Tom Jones there was the author's ebul- 
lient youth and manhood ; behind Amelia but a 
section of his graver middle-age. There are 
other reasons for diversity in the manner of the 
1 Revue des Deux Monde s^ 1 83 2. 



212 Henry Fielding 

book itself. The absence of the initial chapters, 
which gave so much variety to Tom Jones, tends 
to heighten the sense of impatience which, it 
must be confessed, occasionally creeps over the 
reader of Amelia, especially in those parts where, 
like Dickens at a later period. Fielding delays 
the progress of his narrative for the discussion of 
social problems and popular grievances. How- 
ever laudable the desire (expressed in the dedica- 
tion) ^' to expose some of the most glaring Evils^ 
as well public as private, which at present infest 
this Country," the result in Amelia, from an art 
point of view^ is as unsatisfactory as that of cer- 
tain well-known pages of Bleak House and Little 
Dorrit, Again, there is a marked change in the 
attitude of the author, — a change not wholly rec- 
oncilable with the brief period which separates 
the two novels. However it may have chanced, 
whether from failing health or otherwise, the 
Fielding of Amelia is suddenly a far older man 
than the Fielding of Tom Jones. The robust and 
irrepressible vitality, the full-veined delight of 
living, the energy of observation and strength of 
satire, which characterise the one give place in 
the other to a calmer retrospection, a more com- 
passionate humanity, a gentler and more benig- 
nant criticism of life. That, as some have con- 
tended, Amelia shows an intellectual falling-off 



A Memoir 213 

cannot for a moment be admitted, least of all 
upon the ground — as even so staunch an admirer 
as Mr. Keightley has allowed himself to believe 
— that certain of its incidents are obviously re- 
peated from the Modern Husband and others of 
the author's plays. At this rate Tom Jones might 
be judged inferior to Joseph Andrews, because the 
Political Apothecary in the " Man of the Hills " 
story has his prototype in the Coffee-House Poll- 
iician, whose original is Addison's Upholster. 
The plain fact is, that Fielding recognised the 
failure of his plays as literature ; he regarded them 
as dead ; and freely transplanted what was good 
of his forgotten work into the work which he 
hoped would live. In this, it may be, there was 
something of indolence or haste ; but assuredly 
there was no proof of declining powers. 

If, for the sake of comparison, Tom Jones may 
be described as an animated and happily-con- 
structed comedy, with more than the usual allow- 
ance of first-rate characters, Amelia must be re- 
garded as a one-part piece, in which the rest of 
the personages are subordinate to the central 
figure. Captain Booth, the two Colonels, Atkin- 
son and his wife. Miss Matthews, Dr. Harrison, 
Trent, the shadowy and maleficent '' My Lord," 
are all less active on their own account than 
energised and set in motion by Amelia. Round 



214 Henry Fielding 

her they revolve ; from her they obtain their im- 
pulse and their orbit. The best of the men, as 
studies, are Dr. Harrison and Colonel Bath. The 
former, who is as benevolent as Allworthy, is far 
more human, and it may be added, more humor- 
ous in v^ell-doing. He is an individual rather than 
an abstraction. Bath, w^ith his dignity and gun- 
cotton honour, is also admirable, but not entirely 
free from the objection made to some of Dick- 
en's creations, that they are characteristics rather 
than characters. Captain William Booth, beyond 
his truth to nature, manifests no qualities that 
can compensate for his weakness, and the best 
that can be said of him is, that without it, his wife 
would have had no opportunity for the display of 
her magnanimity. There is also a certain want 
of consistency in his presentment ; and when, in 
the residence of Mr. Bondum the bailiff, he 
suddenly develops an unexpected scholarship, it 
is impossible not to suspect that Fielding was un- 
willing to lose the opportunity of preserving some 
neglected scenes of the Author's Farce, Miss 
Matthews is a new and remarkable study of the 
femme entretenue, to parallel which, as in the 
case of Lady Bellaston, we must go to Balzac ; 
Mrs. James, again, an excellent example of that 
vapid and colourless nonentity, the '^ person of 
condition." Mrs. Bennet, although apparently 



A Memoir 215 

more contradictory and less intelligible, is never- 
theless true to her past history and present en- 
vironments ; while her husband, the sergeant, 
with his reticent and reverential love for his 
beautiful foster-sister, has had a long line of de- 
scendants in the modern novel. It is upon 
Amelia, however, that the author has lavished all 
his pains, and there is no more touching portrait 
in the whole of fiction than this heroic and im- 
mortal one of feminine goodness and forbear- 
ance. It is needless to repeat that it is painted 
from Fielding's first wife, or to insist that, as 
Lady Mary was fully persuaded, *' several of the 
incidents he mentions are real matters of fact.*" 
That famous scene where Amelia is spreading, 
for the recreant who is losing his money at the 
King's Arms, the historic little supper of hashed 
mutton which she has cooked with her own 
hands, and denying herself a glass of white wine 
to save the paltry sum of sixpence, ** while her 
Husband was paying a Debt of several Guineas 
incurred by the Ace of Trumps being in the 
Hands of his Adversary " ^ — a scene which it is 
impossible to read aloud without a certain huski- 
ness in the throat, — the visits to the pawnbroker 
and the sponging-house, the robbery by the little 
servant, the encounter at Vauxhall, and some of 
* Amelia y Bk. x. ch. 5. 



2i6 Henry Fielding 

the pretty vignettes of the children, are no doubt 
founded on personal recollections. Whether the 
pursuit to which the heroine is exposed had any 
foundation in reality it is impossible to say ; and 
there is a passage in Murphy's memoir which al- 
most reads as if it had been penned with the ex- 
press purpose of anticipating any too harshly 
literal identification of Booth with Fielding, 
since we are told of the latter that '* though dis- 
posed to gallantry by his strong animal spirits, 
and the vivacity of his passions, he was remark- 
able for tenderness and constancy to his wife [the 
italics are ours], and the strongest affection for 
his children/' ^ These, however, are questions 
beside the matter, which is the conception of 
Amelia. That remains, and must remain for 
ever, in the words of one of Fielding's greatest 
modern successors, a figure 

" wrought with love . . . 
Nought modish in it, pure and noble lines 
Of generous womanhood that fits all time." 

There are many women who forgive ; but Amelia 
does more — she not only forgives, but she forgets. 
The passage in which she exhibits to her con- 
trite husband the letter received long before from 
Miss Matthews is one of the noblest in litera- 
ls ^^^/^j, 1762, i. 48. 



A Memoir 217 

ture ; and if it had been recorded that Fielding 
— like Thackeraj' on a memorable occasion — 
had here slapped his fist upon the table, and said 
'* That is a stroke of genius ! " it would scarcely 
have been a thing to be marvelled at. One last 
point in connection vv^ith her maybe noted, which 
has not always been borne in mind by those who 
depict good women — much after Hogarth's fash- 
ion — without a head. She is not by any means 
a simpleton, and it is misleading to describe her 
as a tender, fluttering little creature, who, be- 
cause she can cook her husband's supper, and 
caresses him with the obsolete name of Billy, 
must necessarily be contemptible. On the con- 
trary, she has plenty of ability and good sense, 
with a fund of humour which enables her to enjoy 
slily and even satirise gently the fine lady airs 
of Mrs. James. Nor is it necessary to contend 
that her faculties are subordinated to her affec- 
tions ; but rather that conjugal fidelity and Chris- 
tian charity are inseparable alike from her char- 
acter and her creed. 

As illustrating the tradition that Fielding de- 
picted his first wife in Sophia Western and in 
Amelia, it has been remarked that there is no 
formal description of her personal appearance in 
his last novel, her portrait having already been 
drawn at length in Tom Jones, But the follow- 



2i8 Henry Fielding 

ing depreciatory sketch by Mrs. James is worth 
quoting, not only because it indirectly conveys 
the impression of a very handsome woman, but 
because it is also an admirable specimen of 
Fielding's lighter manner : 

^* ' In the first place,' cries Mrs. James, *her 
eyes are too large ; and she hath a look with 
them that I don't know how to describe ; but I 
know I don't like it. Then her eyebrows are 
too large ; therefore, indeed, she doth all in her 
power to remedy this with her pincers ; for if it 
was not for those, her eyebrows would be pre- 
posterous. — Then her nose, as well proportioned 
as it is, has a visible scar on one side. ^ — Her 
neck likewise is too protuberant for the genteel 
size, especially as she laces herself; for no 
woman, in my opinion, can be genteel who is not 
entirely flat before. And lastly, she is both too 
short, and too tall. — Well, you may laugh, Mr. 
James, I know what I mean, though I cannot 
well express it. I mean, that she is too tall for a 
pretty woman, and too short for a fine woman. 
— There is such a thing as a kind of insipid 
medium — a kind of something that is neither one 
thing nor another. I know not how to express it 
more clearly ; but when I say such a one is a 
pretty woman, a pretty thing, a pretty creature, 
1 See note on this subject in chapter iv. 



A Memoir 219 

you know very well I mean a little woman ; and 
when I say such a one is a very fine woman, a 
very fine person of a woman, to be sure I must 
mean a tall woman. Not a woman that is be- 
tween both, is certainly neither the one nor the 
other." 1 

The ingenious expedients of Andrew Millar, to 
which reference has been made, appear to have 
so far succeeded that a new edition of Amelia 
was called for on the day of publication. John- 
son^ to whom we owe this story, was thoroughly 
captivated with the book. Notwithstanding that 
on another occasion he paradoxically asserted 
that the author was*' a blockhead" — **a barren 
rascal/' he read it through without stopping, and 
pronounced Mrs. Booth to be *'the most pleas- 
ing heroine of all the romances."^ Richardson, 
on the other hand, found '^the characters and 
situations so wretchedly low and dirty" that he 
could not get farther than the first volume.'^ 
With the professional reviewers, a certain Crit- 

J Amelia, Bk. xi. ch. i. 

2 Hill's BoswelVs Johnson, 1887, iii- 43- Another ad- 
mirer was Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, who writes (30 March, 
1751), "Methinks I long to engage you on the side of this 
poor unfortunate book, which I am told the fine folks are 
unanimous in pronouncing to be very sad stuff.'* (^Letters, 
3d ed., 1819, i. 368.) 

^ Correspondence y 1804, iv. 60. 



220 Henry Fielding 

iculus in the Gentleman's excepted, it seems to 
have fared but ill ; and although these adverse 
verdicts, if they exist, are now more or less in- 
accessible, Fielding has apparently summarised 
most of them in a mock-trial of Amelia before 
the '* Court of Censorial Enquiry," the proceed- 
ings of which are recorded in Nos. 7 and 8 of 
the Covent-Garden Journal. The book is in- 
dicted upon the Statute of Dulness, and the 
heroine is charged with being a '' low Character," 
a ''Milksop,'^ and a ''Fool;'' with lack of spirit 
and fainting too frequently ; with dressing her 
children, cooking and other '* servile Offices;" 
with being too forgiving to her husband ; and 
lastly, as may be expected, with the inconsist- 
ency, already amply referred to, of being **a 
Beauty without a nose.'''^ Dr. Harrison and 
Colonel Bath are arraigned much in the same 
fashion. After some evidence against her has 
been tendered, and ^'a Great Number of Beaus, 

1 Fielding had already inserted a special announcement 
on this point in No. 3(11 January, 1752): "It is currently 
reported that a famous Surgeon, who absolutely cured one 
Mrs. Amelia Booth, of a violent Hurt in her Nose, inso- 
much, that she had scarce a Scar left on it, intends to bring 
Actions against several ill-meaning and slanderous People, 
who have reported that the said Lady had no Nose, merely 
because the Author of her History, in a Hurry, forgot to in- 



A Memoir 221 

Rakes, fine Ladies, and several formal Persons 
with bushy Wigs, and Canes at their Noses,'' 
are preparing to supplement it, a grave man steps 
forv\^ard, and, begging to be heard^ delivers what 
must be regarded as Fielding's final apology for 
his last novel : 

'' If you, Mr. Censor, are yourself a Parent, 
you will view me with Compassion when I de- 
clare I am the Father of this poor Girl the 
Prisoner at the Bar; nay, when I go further and 
avow, that of all my Off*spring she is my favour- 
ite Child. I can truly say that I bestowed a 
more than ordinary Pains in her Education ; in 
which I will venture to affirm, I followed the 
Rules of all those who are acknowledged to 
have writ best on the Subject ; and if her Con- 
duct be fairly examined, she will be found to 
deviate very little from the strictest Observation 
of all those Rules; neither Homer nor Virgil 
pursued them with greater Care than myself, and 
the candid and learned Reader will see that the 
latter was the noble model, which I made use of 
on this Occasion. 

form his Readers of that Particular, and which, if those 
Readers had any Nose themselves, except that which is 
mentioned in the Motto of this Paper, they would have 
smelt out." The motto is the passage from Martial in 
which he speaks of the nastis rhinocerotis. 



222 Henry Fielding 

*M do not think my Child is entirely free from 
Faults. I know nothing human that is so ; but 
surely she doth not deserve the Rancour with 
which she hath been treated by the Public. 
However, it is not my Intention, at present, to 
make any Defence ; but shall submit to a Com- 
promise, which hath been always allowed in this 
Court in all Prosecutions for Dulness. I do, 
therefore, solemnly declare to you, Mr. Censor, 
that I will trouble the World no more with any 
Children of mine by the same Muse.''^ 

Whether sincere or not, this last statement ap- 
pears to have afforded the greatest gratification to 
Richardson. ^^Will I leave you to Captain 
Booth?" he writes triumphantly to Mrs. Don- 
nellan, in answer to a question she had put to 
him. **Capt. Booth, Madam, has done his own 
business. Mr. Fielding has over-written him- 
self, or rather under-wv\X.iQn ; and in his own 
journal seems ashamed of his last piece ; and has 
promised that the same Muse shall write no more 
for him. The piece, in short, is as dead as if it 
had been published forty years ago, as to sale.''^ 
There is much to the same effect in the little 
printer's correspondence ; but enough has been 
quoted to show how intolerable to the super- 

1 Covejit Gaj'den Journal, No. 8, 28 January, 1 75 2. 

2 Correspondence, 1804, iv. 59. 



A Memoir 223 

sentimental creator of the high-souled and heroic 
Clarissa was his rivars plainer and more practical 
picture of matronly virtue and modesty. In cases 
of this kind, parva seges satis est, and Amelia has 
long since outlived both rival malice and contem- 
porary coldness. It is a proof of her author's 
genius, that she is even more intelligible to our 
age than she w^as to her own. 

At the end of the second volume of the first 
edition of her history was a notice announcing 
the immediate appearance of the above-men- 
tioned Covent-Garden Journal, a bi-weekly 
paper, in which Fielding, under the style and 
title of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, assumed the 
office of Censor of Great Britain. The first 
number of this new venture was issued on Janu- 
ary the 4th, 1752, and the price was threepence. 
In plan, and general appearance, it resembled 
the Jacobite's Journal, consisting mainly of an 
introductory Essay, paragraphs of current news, 
often accompanied by pointed editorial com- 
ment, miscellaneous articles, and advertisements. 
One of the features of the earlier numbers was a 
burlesque, but not very successful. Journal of the 
present Paper War, which speedily involved the 
author in actual hostilities with the notorious 
quack and adventurer Dr. John Hill, who for 
some time had been publishing certain impudent 



224 Henry Fielding 

lucubrations in the London Daily Advertiser under 
the heading of The Inspector; and also with 
Smollett, whom he (Fielding) had obliquely ridi- 
culed in his second number, perhaps on account 
of that little paragraph in the first edition of 
Peregrine Pickle^ to which reference was made 
in an earlier chapter. Smollett, always irritable 
and combative, retorted by a needlessly coarse 
and venomous pamphlet, in which, under the 
name of '' Habbakkuk Hilding/' Fielding was 
attacked with indescribable brutality.^ Another, 
and seemingly unprovoked, adversary whom the 
Journal of the War brought upon him was Bon- 
ne! Thornton, afterwards joint-author with 
George Colman of the Connoisseur, who, in a 
production styled Have at you All; or, The 

J The full title of this is — *'A Faithful Narrative of the 
Base and inhuman Arts That were lately practised up07i the 
Brain of Habbakkuk Hilding, Justice^ Dealer and Chap- 
man, Who now lies at his House in Covent Garden, in a 
deplorable State of Lunacy ; a dreadful mojtument of false 
Friendship and Delusion." By Drawcansir Alexander^ 
Fencing Master and Philomath, London: J. Sharp, 1752. 
All that Fielding had done to justify this laboured scurril- 
ity, was to make some not very terrible allusions to Roder- 
ick Random and Peregrine Pickle, The "false Friend- 
ship " referred to in the title-page was that of Fielding for 
Lyttelton, whom Smollett- hated, and who is also attacked 
in the Narrative, 



A Memoir 225 

Drury Lam Journal^ lampooned Sir Alexander 
with remarkable rancour and assiduity. Mr. 
Lawrence has treated these '' quarrels of authors " 
at some length ; and they also have some record 
in the curious collections of the elder Disraeli. 
As a general rule, Fielding was far less personal 
and much more scrupulous in his choice of weap- 
ons than those who assailed him ; but the con- 
flict was an undignified one, and, as Scott has 
justly said, ^'neither party would obtain honour 
by an inquiry into the cause or conduct of its 
hostilities." 

In the enumeration of Fielding's works it is 
somewhat difficult (if due proportion be observed) 
to assign any real importance to efforts like the 
Covent-Garden Journal. Compared with his nov- 
els, they are insignificant enough. But even the 
worst work of such a man is notable in its way ; 
and Fielding's contributions to the Journal are 
by no means to be despised. They are shrewd 
lay sermons^ often exhibiting much out-of-the- 
way erudition, and nearly always distinguished 
by some of his personal qualities. In No. 33, 
on *^ Profanity," there is a character-sketch 
which, for vigour and vitality, is worthy of his 
best days ; and there is also a very thoughtful paper 
on " Reading," in No. 10, containing an already 
mentioned reference to " the ingenious Author 



226 Henry Fielding 

of Clarissa,'" which should have mollified that 
implacable moralist. In this essay it is curious 
to notice that, while Fielding speaks with due 
admiration of Shakespeare and Moli^re, Lucian, 
Cervantes, and Swift, he condemns Rabelais 
and Aristophanes, although in the invocation 
already quoted from Tom Jones, he had included 
both these authors among the models he admired.^ 
Another paper in the Covent-Garden Journal is 
especially interesting because it affords a clue to 
a project of Fielding's which unfortunately re- 
mained a project. This was a Translation of the 
works of Lucian, to be undertaken in conjunc- 
tion with his old colleague, the Rev. William 
Young. Proposals were advertised, and the en- 
terprise was duly heralded by *^ puff preliminary," 
in which Fielding, while abstaining from anything 
directly concerning his own abilities, observes, 
** I will only venture to say, that no Man seems 
so likely to translate an Author well, as he who 
hath formed his Stile upon that very Author'' — a 
sentence which, taken in connection with the ref- 
erences to Lucian in Tom Thumb the Champion 
and elsewhere, must be accepted as distinctly 
autobiographic. The last number of the Covent- 

1 It is of course possible that this paper, which is initialed 
« C," may be by another hand. But Murphy reprints it as 
Fielding*s. 



A Memoir 227 

Garden Journal (No. 72) was issued in November, 
1752. By this time Sir Alexander seems to have 
thoroughly wearied of his task. With more 
gravity than usual he takes leave of letters, beg- 
ging the Public that they will not henceforth 
father on him the dulness and scurrility of his 
worthy contemporaries; ** since I solemnly de- 
clare that unless in revising my former Works, I 
have at present no Intention to hold any further 
Correspondence with the gayer Muses." ^ 

The labour of conducting the Covent-Garden 
Journal must have been the more severe in that, 
during the whole period of its existence, the 
editor was vigorously carrying out his duties as a 
magistrate. The prison and political scenes in 
Amelia, which contemporary critics regarded as 
redundant, and which even to us are more curious 
than essential, testify at once to his growing in- 
terest in reform, and his keen appreciation of the 
defects which existed both in the law itself and 
in the administration of the law ; while the nu- 
merous cases heard before him, and periodically 
reported in his paper by his clerk, Mr. Brogden, 
afford ample evidence of his judicial activity. 
How completely he regarded himself (Bathurst 
and Rigby notwithstanding) as the servant of the 

1 Covent-Garden Journal^ 25 November, 1752. 



228 Henry Fielding 

public, may be gathered from the following reg- 
ularly repeated notice : 

*^ To the Public. 

'' All Persons who shall for the Future, suffer 
by Robbers, Burglars, &c., are desired imme- 
diately to bring, or send, the best Description 
they can of such Robbers, &c., with the Time 
and Place, and Circumstances of the Fact, to 
Henry Fielding, Esq. ; at his House in Bow 
Street.'^ 

Another instance of his energy in his vocation 
is to be found in the little collection of cases en- 
titled Examples of the Interposition of Provi- 
dence^ in the Detection and Punishment of Murder, 
published, with Preface and Introduction, in 
April, 1752, and prompted, as advertisement an- 
nounces, *'by the many horrid Murders com- 
mitted within this last Year." It appeared, as a 
matter of fact, only a few days after the execu- 
tion at Oxford, for parricide, of the notorious 
Miss Mary Blandy, and might be assumed to 
have a more or less timely intention ; but the 
purity of Fielding's purpose is placed beyond a 
doubt by the fact that he freely distributed it in 
court to those whom it seemed calculated to 
profit. 

The only other works of Fielding which pre- 
cede the posthumously published Journal of a 



A Memoir 229 

Voyage to Lisbon are the Proposal for Making an 
Effectual Provision for the Poor, etc., a pamphlet 
dedicated to the Right Hondle. Henry Pelham, 
published in January, 17^3 ; and the Clear State 
of the Case of Elizabeth Canning, published in 
March. The former, which the hitherto un- 
friendly Gentleman s patronisingly styles an ^* ex- 
cellent piece," conceived in a manner which 
gives '' a high idea of his [the author's] present 
temper, manners and ability," is an elaborate 
project for the erection, inter alia, of a vast build- 
ing, at Acton Wells, of which a plan, *' drawn by 
an Eminent Hand," was given, to be called the 
County-house, capable of containing 5,000 in- 
mates, and including work-rooms, prisons, an in- 
firmary, and other features, the details of which 
are too minute to be repeated in these pages, 
even if they had received any attention from the 
Legislature, which they did not. The latter was 
Fielding's contribution to the extraordinary 
judicial puzzle, which agitated London in 1753-4. 
It is needless to do more than recall its outline. 
On Monday the 29th of January, 1753, one 
Elizabeth Canning, a domestic servant aged 
eighteen or thereabouts, who had hitherto borne 
an excellent character, returned to her mother, 
having been missing from the house of her mas- 
ter, a carpenter in Aldermanbury, since the ist 



230 Henry Fielding 

of the same month. She was half starved and 
half clad, and alleged that she had been abducted, 
and confined in a house on the Hertford Road, 
from which she had just escaped. This house 
she afterwards identified as that of one Susan- 
nah or Mother Wells, a person of very indifferent 
reputation. An ill-favoured old gipsy woman 
named Mary Squires w^as also declared by her to 
have been the main agent in ill-using and detain- 
ing her. The gipsy, it is true, averred that at 
the time of the occurrence she was a hundred and 
twenty miles away in Dorsetshire ; but Canning 
persisted in her statement. Among other people 
before whom she 'came was Fielding, who ex- 
amined her, as well as a young woman called 
Virtue Hall, Vvmo appeared subsequently as one 
of Canning's witnesses. Fielding seems to have 
been strongly impressed by her appearance and 
her story, and his pamphlet (which was contra- 
dicted in every particular by his adversary, John 
Hill) gives a curious and not very edifying picture 
of the m.agisterial procedure of the period. In 
February, Wells and Squires were tried ; Squires 
was sentenced to death, and V/ells to imprison- 
ment and burning in the hand. Then, by the ex- 
ertions of the Lord Mayor, Sir Crisp Gascoyne, 
who doubted the justice of the verdict. Squires 
was respited and pardoned. Forthwith London 



A Memoir 231 

was split up into Egyptian and Canningite fac- 
tions ; a hailstorm of pamphlets set in, one of the 
best of which was by Allan Ramsay the painter ; 
portraits and caricatures of the principal person- 
ages were in all the print shops ; and, to use 
Churchill's words in The Ghost, 

" — ^alty Canning was at least. 
With Gascoyfte's help, a six months feast" * 

In April, 1754, however. Fate so far prevailed 
against her that she herself, in turn, was tried at 
the Old Bailey for perjury. Thirty-eight wit- 
nesses swore that Squires had been in Dorsetshire ; 
twenty-seven that she had been seen in Middle- 
sex. After some hesitation, quite of a piece with 
the rest of the proceedings, the jury found Can- 
ning guilty ; and she was transported for seven 
years. At the end of her sentence she returned 
to England to receive a legacy of ;^> 00, which 
had been left to her three years before by an 
enthusiastic old lady of Newington-green.* Her 

» She did not, however, mislead every one, for clever Lady 
Hervey regarded her account of her adventures as ** one of 
the silliest, worst-formed, improbable stories I ever met" 
{Letters of Mary Lepelj Lady Hervey, 1S21, p. 202.) 

»So says the Annual Register ior 1761, p. 179. But ac- 
cording to later accounts {Gent, Mag, xJiii. 413), she never 
returned, dying in July, 1773, at Weathers field in Connecti- 
cut. 



232 Henry Fielding 

**case'' is full of the most inexplicable contra- 
dictions ; and it occupies in the State Trials some 
four hundred and twenty closely-printed pages of 
the most curious and picturesque eighteenth-cen- 
tury details. But how, from the ist of January, 
17)3, to ^^^ 29th of the same month, Elizabeth 
Canning really did manage to spend her time is a 
secret that^ to this day, remains unrevealed. 



CHAPTER VII 

The beginning of the end ; poor law projects ; Journal of 
a Voyage to Lisbo7i ; scheme for the prevention of rob- 
beries, etc; failing health; magisterial duties; sets out 
for Lisbon, 26 June, 1754; incidents of journey; a 
" riding surveyor ; " letter to John Fielding ; Captain 
Richard Veal and others ; reaches Lisbon, 14 August ; 
dies there, 8 October ; his tomb and epitaph ; his por- 
trait ; his character ; his work. 

In March, 1753, when Fielding published his 
pamphlet on Elizabeth Canning, his life was 
plainly drawing to a close. His energies indeed 
were unabated, as may be gathered from a brief 
record in the Gentleman s for that month, describ- 
ing his judicial raid, at four in the morning, upon a 
gaming-room, where he suspected certain high- 
waymen to be assembled. But his body was en- 
feebled by disease, and he knew he could not 
look for length of days. He had lived not long, 
but much ; he had seen in little space, as the 
motto to Tom Jones announced, ** the manners 
of many men ; '' and now that, prematurely, the 
inevitable hour approached, he called Cicero and 
Horace to his aid, and prepared to meet his fate 
with philosophic fortitude. Between 



234 Henry Fielding 

" Quern fcrs dieru7?i cunque dabit^ lucro 
Appone;' 

and 

«* Grata stiperveniet, quce non sperabitur^ hora^'* 

he tells us in his too-little-consulted Proposals for 
the Poor, he had schooled himself to regard 
events with equanimity, striving above all, in 
what remained to him of life, to perform the 
duties of his office efficiently, and solicitous only 
for those he must leave behind him. Hencefor- 
ward his literary efforts should be mainly philan- 
thropic and practical, not without the hope that, 
if successful^ they might be the means of securing 
some provision for his family. Of fiction he had 
taken formal leave in the trial of Amelia; and of 
lighter writing generally in the last paper of the 
Covent-Garden Journal. But, if we may trust 
his Introduction, the amount of work he had 
done for his poor-law project must have been 
enormous, for he had read and considered all the 
laws upon the subject, as well as everything that 
had been written on it since the days of Eliza- 
beth, yet he speaks nevertheless as one over 
whose head the sword had all the while been im- 
pending : 

**The Attempt, indeed, is such, that the Want 
of Success can scarce be called a Disappointment, 
tho' I shall have lost much Time^ and misem- 



A Memoir 235 

ployed much Pains ; and what is above all, shall 
miss the Pleasure of thinking that in the Decline 
of my Health and Life, I have conferred a great 
and lasting Benefit on my Country." 

In words still more resigned and dignified, he 
concludes the book — His enemies, he says, will 
no doubt, 

" Discover, that instead of intending a Pro- 
vision for the Poor, I have been carving out one 
for myself,^ and have very cunningly projected to 
build myself a fine House at the Expence of the 
Public. This would be to act in direct Opposi- 
tion to the Advice of my above Master [f.e., 
Horace] ; it would be indeed 

Struere domos immemor sepidchru 

Those who do not know me, may believe this ; 
but those who do, will hardly be so deceived by 
that Chearfulness which was always natural to 
me ; and which, I thank God, my Conscience 
doth not reprove m.e, for, to imagine that I am 
not sensible of my declining Constitution. . . . 
Ambition or Avarice can no longrer raise a Hooe, 
or dictate any Scheme to me, who have no fur- 
ther Design than to pass my short Remainder of 
Life in some Degree of Ease, and barely to pre- 

1 Presumably as Governor of the proposed County-house. 



236 Henry Fielding 

serve my Family from being the Objects of any 
such Laws as I have here proposed/' 

With the exception of the above, and kindred 
passages quoted from the Prefaces to the Mis- 
cellanies and the Plays, the preceding pages, as 
the reader has no doubt observed, contain little 
of a purely autobiographical character. More- 
over, the anecdotes related of Fielding by 
Murphy and others have not always been of such 
a nature as to inspire implicit confidence in their 
accuracy, while of the very few letters that have 
been referred to, none has any of those intimate 
and familiar touches which reveal the individual- 
ity of the writer. But from the middle of 1753 
up to a short time before his death, Fielding has 
himself related the story of his life, in one of the 
most unfeigned and touching little tracts in our 
own or any other literature. The only thing 
which, at the moment, suggests itself for com- 
parison with the Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon is 
the prologue and dedication which Fielding's 
predecessor, Cervantes, prefixes to his last 
romance of Persiles and Si^ismunda, In each 
case the words are animated by the same uncom- 
plaining kindliness — the same gallant and in- 
domitable spirit ; in each case the writer is a 
dying man. Cervantes survived the date of his 
letter to the Conde de Lemos but four days ; and 



A Memoir 237 

the Journal says Fielding's editor (probably his 
brother John), was '* finished almost at the same 
period with life.*' It was written, from its 
author's account, in those moments of the voyage 
when, his womankind being sea-sick, and the 
crew wholly absorbed in working the ship, he 
was thrown on his own resources, and compelled 
to employ his pen to while away the time. The 
Preface, and perhaps the Introduction, were 
added after his arrival at Lisbon, in the brief 
period before his death. The former is a semi- 
humorous apology for voyage-writing ; the latter 
gives an account of the circumstances which led 
to this, his last expedition in search of health. 

At the beginning of August, 1753, — Fielding 
tells us, — having taken the Duke of Portland's 
medicine^ for near a year, *' the effects of which 
had been the carrying oif the symptoms of a lin- 
gering imperfect gout," Mr. Ranby, the King's 
Sergeant-Surgeon (to whom complimentary ref- 
erence had been made in the Man of the Hill's 
story) ,^ with other able physicians, advised him 
*'to go immediately to Bath." He accordingly 
engaged lodgings, and prepared to leave town 

1 A popular eighteenth-century gout-powder, but as old as 
Galen. The receipt for it is given in the Gentle7iia7i's Mag- 
azine, vol. xxii., 579. 

2 Tom Jones y Bk. viii., ch. 13. 



23.8 Henry Fielding 

forthwith. While he was making ready for his 
departure, and was *^ almost fatigued to death 
with several long examinations, relating to five 
different murders, all committed within the space 
of a week, by different gangs of street robbers,'' 
he received a message from the Duke of New- 
castle, afterwards Premier, through that Mr. 
Carrington whom Walpole calls **the cleverest 
of all ministerial terriers," requesting his attend- 
ance in Lincoln's-Inn Fields (Newcastle House). 
Being lame, and greatly overtaxed. Fielding ex- 
cused himself. But the Duke sent Mr. Carring- 
ton again next day, and Fielding with great dif- 
ficulty obeyed the summons. After waiting some 
three hours in the antechamber (no unusual fea- 
ture, as Lord Chesterfield informs us, of the New- 
castle audiences), a gentleman was deputed to 
consult him as to the devising of a plan for putting 
an immediate end to the murders and robberies 
which had become so common. This, although 
the visit cost him '*a severe cold," Fielding at 
once undertook. A proposal was speedily drawn 
out and submitted to the Privy Council. Its es- 
sential features were the employment of a known 
informer, and the provision of funds for that pur- 
pose. 

By the time this scheme was finally approved, 
Fielding's disorder had '* turned to a deep jaun- 



A Memoir 239 

dice," in which case the Bath waters were gen- 
erally regarded as '' almost infallible. " But his 
eager desire to break up *• this gang of villains 
and cut-throats " delayed him in London ; and a 
day or two alter he had received a portion of the 
stipulated grant, (which portion, it seems, took 
several weeks in arriving), the whole body were 
entirely dispersed, — ** seven of thera were in 
actual custody, and the rest driven, some out of 
town, and others out of the kingdom." In ex- 
amining them, however, and in taking deposi- 
tions, which often occupied whole days and some- 
times nights, although he had the satisfaction of 
knowing that during the dark months of Novem- 
ber and December the metropolis enjoyed com- 
plete immunity from murder and robbery,-^ his 
own health was *' reduced to the last extremity/' 
** Mine (he says) was now no longer what is 
called a Bath case," nor, if it had been, could his 
strength have sustained the '* intolerable fatigue " 
of the journey thither. He accordingly gave up 
his Bath lodgings, which he had hitherto retained, 
and went into the country '' in a very weak and de- 

1 This is confirmed by a paragraph in the Public Advertiser 
for I January, 1754, — "A Gentleman at Genoa writes, that 
the Letters from Corsica are as full of Housebreakings, 
Robberies and Murders, as a London Newspaper before Mr, 
F, *s Plan was carried into Execution,^^ 



240 Henry Fielding 

plorable condition." He was suffering from 
jaundice, dropsy, and asthma, under which com- 
bination of diseases his body was '^ so entirely 
emaciated, that it had lost all its muscular flesh." 
He had begun with reason *^to look on his case 
as desperate," and might fairly have regarded 
himself as voluntarily sacrificed to the good of the 
public. But he is far too honest to assign his ac- 
tion to philanthropy alone. His chief object (he 
owns) had been, if possible, to secure some pro- 
vision for his family in the event of his death. 
Not being a '' trading justice," — that is, a justice 
who took bribes from suitors, like Justice Thrasher 
in Amelia, or Justice Squeez'um in the Coffee 
House Politician, — his post at Bow Street had 
scarcely been a lucrative one. '^ By composing, 
instead of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and 
beggars (which I blush when I say hath not been 
universally practised) and by refusing to take a 
shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would 
not have had another left, I had reduced an in- 
come of about 500/ a year of the dirtiest money 
upon earth to little more than 300/, a considera- 
ble proportion of which remained with my clerk." ^ 
Besides the residue of his justice's fees, he had 
also, he informs us, a yearly pension from the 
Government, ^* out of the public service-money," 

^ journal of a Voyage to Lisbott^ ^755> PP- 23-4. 



A Memoir 241 

but the amount is not stated. The rest of his 
means, ais far as can be asc^: : ere de- 

riTed from his literary labours " - : r* his 

lavish (fisposition, and with tt e .!ly 

upon him, tins could scarcel 
petence ; and if, as appears e: 
a note in the /ouniiit , he no^v :-■ ^ :z::r 

to his half-brother, who had I: -s as»st- 

ant, his private affairs at the be. ;^^ e .in- 

ter of I75J-54 most, as he sa; s : t ?i 

gloomy aspect." In the eve 
wife and children could have ' : 
some acknowledgment by the GoTenumeait 01 ms 
past services. 

Meanwhile his <fiseases Te'e : gaining 

ground. The terrible wir.:e- :: - - _ :di, 
firom the weather record in 
with small intermis^ony : 
for into April, was espec 
patients, and consequen: 
In February he returned : 
under the care of the notorious Eh*. Joshua Ward 
of P^ Mall, by whom he was treated and tapped 
for dropsy.^ He was at his worst, he says, " on 

iWaid appeals in Hogntii'^ CKtstdtaHgmmfFfynaams, 
1756; in Fdpe—^ Ward tiy'd on Plqipies^ and file Foot, bis 
DrapL" And rren in 7m» 5>&»er, wlieie Fielding likens 
InlEicst to « War^s Fill [whidi] ffies at once to die poitic- 



242 Henry Fielding 

that memorable day when the public lost Mr. 
Pelham (March 6th) ; '' but from this time, he 
began, under Ward's medicines, to acquire '' some 
little degree of strength," although his dropsy in- 
creased. With May came the long-delayed 
spring, and he moved to Fordhook,^ a ''little 
house " belonging to him at Ealing, the air of 
which place then enjoyed a considerable reputa- 
tion, being reckoned the best in Middlesex, 
" and far superior to that of Kensington Gravel- 
Pits/' Here a re-perusal of Bishop Berkeley's 
Siris^ which had been recalled to his memory by 
Mrs. Charlotte Lenox, '' the inimitable and shame- 
fully distressed author of the Female Quixote^'' set 
him drinking tar-water with apparent good effect, 
except as far as his chief ailment was concerned. 
The applications of the trocar became more 
frequent : the summer, if summer it could be 
called, was '^mouldering away;'' and winter, 

ular Part of the Body on v/hich you desire to operate." (Bk. 
viii., cri. 9.) He was a quack, but must have possessed 
considerable ability. Bolingbroke wished Pope to consult 
him in 1744; and he attended George II. There is an ac- 
count of him in Nichols's Genuine Works of Hogar thy i. 89^ 
1 It lay on the Uxbridge Road, a little beyond Acton, and 
nearly opposite the present Ealing Common Station of the 
Metropolitan District Railway. The site is now occupied 
by a larger house bearing the same name. 



A Memoir 243 

with all its danger to an invalid, was drawing on 
apace. Nothing seemed hopeful but removal to 
a warmer climate. Aix in Provence was at first 
thought of, but the idea was abandoned on ac- 
count of the diflSculties of the journey. Lisbon, 
where Doddridge had died three years before, 
was then chosen ; a passage in a vessel trading to 
the port was engaged for the sick man, his wife, 
daughter, and two servants ; ^and after some de- 
lays they started.^ At this point the actual JoiiT" 
nal begins with a well remembered entry : 

^ These were a footman and a lady's maid. The foot- 
man's Christian name is given in the Journal as ^Yilliam ; 
the maid was probably the Isabella Ash who was one of 
the witnesses to Fielding's Will (Appendix No. III.). 

* Mrs. Fielding was also accompanied by " a young lady " 
{Jaurnalf etc., 1755, p. 69). This was Miss Margaret Col- 
lier, one of the daughters of Arthur Collier, the metaphysi- 
cian. She was a witness to Fielding's Will (Appendix No. 
III.). In a letter to Richardson {Correspondence^ 1804, ii. 
77), she complains of having been reported to be the "au- 
thor of Mr. Fielding's last work. The Voyage to Lisbon," 
because " it was so very bad a performance, and fell so far 
short of his other works, it must needs be the person with 
him who wrote it."' But this is nothing to the language of 
another of Richardson's admirers, Mr. Thomas Edwards, 
author of The Canons of Criticisfn : — " I have lately read 
over with much indignation Fielding's last piece, called his 
Voyage to Lisbon. That a man who had led such a life as 
he had, should trifle in that manner when immediate death 



244 Henry Fielding 

'^Wednesday, June 26, 1754. — On this day, 
the most melancholy sun I had ever beheld arose, 
and found me awake at my house at Fordhook. 
By the light of this sun, I was, in my own opin- 
ion, last to behold and take leave of some of 
those creatures on whom I doated with a mother- 
like fondness, guided by nature and passion^ and 
uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of 
that philosophical school where I had learnt to 
bear pains and to despise death. 

'' In this situation, as I could not conquer na- 
ture, I submitted entirely to her, and she made as 
great a fool of me as she had ever done of any 
woman whatsoever : under pretence of giving me 
leave to enjoy, she drew me to suffer the com- 
pany of my little ones, during eight hours ; and I 
doubt not w^hether, in that time, I did not un- 
dergo more than in all my distemper. 

*' At tv/elve precisely my coach was at the 
door, which was no sooner told me than I kiss'd 
my children round, and went into it with some 
little resolution. My wife, who behaved more 

was before his eyes, is amazing. From this book I am con- 
firmed in what his other works had fully persuaded me of, 
that with all his parade of pretences to virtuous and humane 
affections, the fellow had no heart. And so — his knell is 
knolled'^ (Idzd, iii. 125). This of the book which, Haz- 
lett tells us, was the favourite of Charles Lamb ! 



A Memoir 245 

like a heroine and philosopher, tho' at the same 
time the tenderest mother in the world, and my 
eldest daughter^ followed me ; some friends went 
with us, and others here took their leave ; and I 
heard my behaviour applauded, with many mur- 
murs and praises to which I well knew I had no 
title ; as all other such philosophers may, if 
they have any modesty, confess on the like oc- 
casions."^ 

Two hours later the party reached Redriffe or 
Rotherhithe. Here, with the kind assistance of 
his and Hogarth's friend, Mr. Saunders Welch, 
High Constable of Holborn, the sick man, who, 
at this time, ^* had no use of his limbs," was 
carried to a boat, and hoisted in a chair over the 
ship's side. This latter journey, far more fatigu- 
ing to the sufferer than the twelve miles ride 
which he had previously undergone, was not ren- 
dered more easy to bear by the jests of the water- 
men and sailors, to whom his ghastly, death- 
stricken countenance seemed matter for merri- 
ment ; and he v/as greatly rejoiced to find himself 
safely seated in the cabin. The voyage, however, 
already more than once deferred, was not yet to 
begin. Wednesday, being King's Proclamation 
Day, the vessel could not be cleared at the 
Custom House ; and on Thursday the skipper 
1 Journal, etc., 1755, pp. 39-40. 



246 Henry Fielding 

announced that he should not set out until Satur- 
day. As Fielding's complaint was again becom- 
ing troublesome, and no surgeon was available on 
board, he sent for his old friend, the famous anat- 
omist, William Hunter, of Covent Garden, by 
whom he was tapped, to his own relief, and the 
admiration of the simple sea-captain, who (he 
writes) was greatly impressed by *^the heroic 
constancy, with which I had borne an operation 
that is attended with scarce any degree of pain." 
On Sunday the vessel dropped down to Graves- 
end, where, on the next day, Mr. Welch, who 
until then had attended them, took his leave ; 
and. Fielding, relieved by the trocar of any im- 
mediate apprehensions of discomfort, might, in 
spite of his forlorn case, have been fairly at ease. 
He had a new concern, however, in the state of 
Mrs. Fielding, who was in agony with toothache, 
which successive operators failed to relieve ; and 
there is an unconsciously touching little picture 
of the sick man and his skipper, who was deaf, sit- 
ting silently over " a small bowl of punch " in the 
narrow cabin, for fear of waking the pain-worn 
sleeper in the adjoining state-room. Of his sec- 
ond wife, as may be gathered from the opening 
words of the Journal Fielding always speaks 
with the warmest affection and gratitude. Else- 
where, recording a storm off the Isle of Wight, 



A Memoir 247 

he says, ** My dear wife and child must pardon 
me, if what I z\i not conceive to be any great 
evil to mysr'f. I as not much terrified with the 
thoughts of ■ . : ening to them: in truth, I have 
often thought they are both too good, and too 
gentle, to be trusted to the power of any man I 
know, to whom they could possibly be so trusted.^ 
With what a tenacity of courtesy he treated the 
whilom Mary Daniel may be gathered from the 
following vignette of insolence in office, which can 
be taken as a set-off to the malicious tattle of 
Walpole : 

•* Soon after their departnre [i. ^., tbat of Mr. Welch and 
Miss Collier's sister Jane« who had come to see her ofif], our 
cabin, where my wife and I were sitting together, was 
visited bj two ruffians, whose appearance greatly corre- 
sponded with that of the sheriff's, or rather the knight- 
marshal's bafli&. One of these, especially, who seemed to 
affect a more than ordinary degree of rudeness and in- 
solence, came in without any kind of ceremony, with a 
broad gold lace upon his hat, which was cocked with 
much military fierceness on his head. An inkhom at 
his button-hole,' and some papers in his hand, sufficiently 
assured me what he was, and I asked him if he and his 

1 Journal^ etc, 1755, p. 149. 

•Readers of Boswell will recall how, at the sale of 
Thrale's brewery, Johnson bustled about, " with an ink-horn 
and pen in his button-hole, like an excise man" (Hill's 
BosweWs Johnson^ 1887, iy. 87). 



248 Henry Fielding 

companions were not custom-house officers; he answered 
with sufficient dignity, that they were, as an information 
which he seemed to consider would strike the hearer with 
awe, and suppress all further inquiry ; but on the contrary 
I proceeded to ask of what rank he was in the Custom- 
house, and receiving an answer from his companion, as I 
remember, that the gentleman was a riding surveyor ; I re- 
plied that he might be a riding surveyor, but he could be 
no gentleman, for that none who had any title to that de- 
nomination, would break into the presence of a lady, with- 
out any apology, or even moving his hat. He then took 
his covering from his head, and laid it on the table, saying, 
he asked pardon, and blamed the mate, who should, he 
said, have informed him if any persons of distinction were 
below. I told him he might guess from our appearance 
(which, perhaps, was rather more than could be said with 
the strictest adherence to truth) that he was before a gentle- 
man and lady, which should teach him to be very civil in 
his behaviour, tho* we should not happen to be of the num- 
ber whom the world calls people of fashion and distinction. 
However, I said, that as he seemed sensible of his error, 
and had asked pardon, the lady would permit him to put 
his hat on again, if he chose it. This he refused with some 
degree of surliness, and failed not to convince me that, if I 
should condescend to become more gentle, he would soon 
grow more rude." ^ 

The date of this occurrence was Monday, July 
the 1st. At six, on the evening of the same day 
they weighed anchor and managed to reach the 
Nore. For more than a week they were wind- 

1 Journal f etc., 1755, PP* 69-7 1. 



A Memoir 249 

bound in the Downs, but on the nth they an- 
chored off Ryde, from which place, on the next 
morning, Fielding despatched the following 
letter to his brother. Besides giving the names 
of the captain and the ship, which are carefully 
suppressed in the Journal, it is especially interest- 
ing as being the last letter written by Fielding of 
which we have any knowledge : 

"On board the Queen of Portugal, Riclid Veal at 
anchor on the Mother Bank, off Ryde, to the 
Care of the Post Master of Portsmouth— this is 
my Date and yr Direction. 

July 12, 1754. 
"Dear Jack, After receiving that agreeable Lre from 
Messrs. Fielding and Co., we weighed on monday morning 
and sailed from Deal to the Westward Four Days long but 
inconceivably pleasant Passage brought us yesterday to an 
Anchor on the Mother Bank, on the Back of the Isle of 
Wight, where we had last Night in Safety the Pleasure of 
hearing the Winds roar over our Heads in as violent a Tem- 
pest as I have known, and where my only Consideration 
were the Fears which must possess any Friend of ours, (if 
there is happily any such) who really makes our Wellbeing 
the Object of his Concern especially if such Friend should be 
totally inexperienced in Sea Affairs. I therefore beg that on 
the Day you receive this Mrs Daniel ^ may know that we are 

lit will be remembered (see Ch. iv.) that the maiden- 
name of Fielding's second wife, as given in the Register of 
St. Bene't's, was Mary Daniel. ** Mrs. Daniel " was there- 



250 Henry Fielding 

just risen from Breakfast in Health and Spirits this twelfth 
Instant at 9 in the morning. Our Voyage hath proved fruit- 
ful in Adventures all which being to be written in the Book, 
you must postpone yr Curiosity As the Incidents which 
fall under yr Cognizance will possibly be consigned to Ob- 
livion, do give them to us as they pass. Tell yr Neighbour 
I am much obliged to him for recommending me to the Care 
of a most able and experienced Seaman to whom other 
Captains seem to pay such Deference that they attend and 
watch his Motions, and think themselves only safe when 
they act under his Direction and Example. Our Ship in 
Truth seems to give Laws on the Water with as much 
Authority and Superiority as you Dispense Laws to the 
Public and Examples to yr Brethren in Commission. Please 
to direct yr Answer to me on Board as in the Date, if gone 
to be returned, and then send it by the Post and Pacquet to 

Lisbon to 

" Yr affect Brother 

" H. Fielding 
" To John Fielding Esq. at his House in 
Bow Street Covt Garden London." 

As the Queen of Portugal did not leave Ryde 
until the 23d, it is possible that Fielding received 
a reply. During the remainder of this desultory 
voyage he continued to beguile his solitary hours 
— hours of which we are left to imagine the 
physical torture and monotony, for he says but 
little of himself — by jottings and notes of the, 

fore, in all probability, Fielding's mother-in-law; and it 
may reasonably be assumed that she had remained in 
charge of the little family at Fordhook. 



A Memoir 251 

for the most part, trivial accidents of his prog- 
ress. That happy cheerfulness, of which he 
spoke in the Proposal for the Poor, had not yet 
deserted him ; and there are moments when he 
seems rather on a pleasure-trip than a forlorn 
pilgrimage in search of health. At Ryde, where, 
for change of air, he went ashore, he chronicles, 
after many discomforts from the most disobliging 
of landladies (let the name of Mrs. Francis go 
down to posterity I), ** the best, the pleasantest, 
and the merriest meal, [in a barn] with more 
appetite, more real, solid luxury, and more fes- 
tivity, than was ever seen in an entertainment at 
Whites."^ At Torbay, he expatiates upon the 
merits and flavour of the John Dory, dear to 
Charles Lamb and Quin, a specimen of which 
^'gloriously regaled" the party, and furnished 
him with a pretext for a dissertation on the Lon- 
don Fish Supply. Another page he devotes to 
commendation of the excellent *'Rom" Vinum 
Pomonce, or Southam cyder, supplied by " Mr. 
Giles Leverance of Cheeshurst, near Dart- 
mouth in Devon,'' of which, for the sum of five 
pounds ten shillings, he extravagantly purchased 
three hogsheads, one for himself, and the others 
as presents for his friends, among whom no doubt 
was kindly Mr. Welch. Here and there he 

^Journal, etc., 1755, p. lOO. 



252 Henry Fielding 

sketches, with but little abatement of his earlier 
gaiety and vigour, the human nature around him. 
Of -the objectionable Ryde landlady and her hus- 
band there are portraits not much inferior to those 
of the Tow-wouses in Joseph Andrews, while 
the military fop, who visits his uncle the captain 
off Spithead, is drawn with all the insight which 
depicted the vagaries of Ensign Northerton, 
whom indeed the real hero of the Journal not a 
little resembles. The best character sketch, 
however, in the whole is that of Captain Rich- 
ard Veal himself (one almost feels inclined to 
wonder whether he was in any way related to the 
worthy lady whose apparition visited Mrs. Bar- 
grave at Canterbury!), but it is of necessity 
somewhat dispersed.^ It has also an additional 
attraction, because — if we remember rightly — it 
is Fielding's sole excursion into the domain of 
Smollett. The rough old sea-dog of the Had- 
dock and Vernon period, who had been a priva- 
teer; and who still, as skipper of a merchant- 
man, when he visits a friend or gallants the 
ladies^ decorates himself with a scarlet coat, 
cockade, and sword ; who gives vent to a kind 
of Irish howl when his favourite kitten is suffo- 

jy^2/r;2<2/, etc., 1755, pp. I10-16, and 142-6. Passages 
relating to some of these personages are given in Appendix 
No. IV. 



A Memoir 253 

cated under a feather bed ; and falls abjectly on 
his knees when threatened with the dreadful 
name of Law, is a character which, in its surly 
good-humour and sensitive dignity, might easily, 
under more favourable circumstances, have grown 
into an individuality, if not equal to that of 
Squire Western, at least on a level with Par- 
tridge or Colonel Bath. There are numbers of 
minute touches — as, for example, his mistaking 
''a lion'' for *' Elias" when he reads prayers to 
the ship's company ; and his quaint asseverations 
when exercised by the incoastancy of the wind 
— which show how closely Fielding studied his 
deaf companion. But it would occupy too large 
a space to examine the Journal more in detail. 
It is sufficient to say that after some further de- 
lays from wind and tide, the travellers sailed up 
the Tagus. Here, having undergone the usual 
quarantine and custom-house obstruction, they 
landed, and Fielding's penultimate words record 
a good supper at Lisbon, '' for which we were as 
well charged, as if the bill had been miade on the 
Bath road, between Newbury and London." 
The book ends with a line from the poet whom, 
in the Proposal for the Poor, he had called his 
master: 

" — Azc Finis chartceque viceque.^^ 

Two months afterwards he died at Lisbon, on 



254 Henry Fielding 

the 8th of October, in the forty-eighth year of 
his age.^ 

He was buried on the hillside in the centre of 
the beautiful English cemetery, which faces the 
great Basilica of the Heart of Jesus, otherwise 
known as the Church of the Estrella. Here, in 
a leafy spot where the nightingales fill the still air 
with song, and watched by those secular cypresses 
from which the place takes its Portuguese name 
of Os CypresteSy lies all that was mortal of him 
whom Scott called the ** Father of the English 
Novel." His first tomb, which Sir Nathaniel 
Wraxall found in 1772, '* nearly concealed by 
weeds and nettles,''^ was erected by the English 
factory, in consequence mainly — as it seems — of 
a proposal made by an enthusiastic Chevalier de 
Meyrionnet, to provide one (with an epitaph) at 
his own expense. That now existing was sub- 
stituted in 1830^ by the exertions of the Rev. 
Christopher Neville, British Chaplain at Lisbon. 
It is a heavy sarcophagus, resting upon a large 
base, and surmounted by just such another urn 
and flame as that on Hogarth's tomb at Chis- 
wick. On the front is a long Latin inscription ; 
on the south face, under '^ Fielding,'' the better- 
known words : 

iSee Appendix No. III.: Fielding's Will. 
2 Memoirs, 2d ed., 1836, i. 



A Memoir 255 

LuGET Britannia Gremio non dart 

FOVERE NATUM.l 

It is to this last memorial that George Borrow 
referred in hi'§ BibU in Spain : 

*' Let travellers devote one entire morning to 
inspecting the Arcos and the Mai das agoas, 
after which they may repair to the English 
church and cemetery, Pere-la-chaise in miniature, 
where, if they be of England, they may well be 
excused if they kiss the cold tomb, as I did, of 
the author of ** Amelia," the most singular genius 
which their island ever produced, whose works 
it has long been the fashion to abuse in public 
and to read in secret." ^ 

Sorrow's book was first published in 1843. 
Of late years the tomb had been somev/hat neg- 
lected ; but from a communication in the Ath- 
enceuni of May, 1879, it appears that it had then 
been recently cleaned, and the inscriptions re- 
stored, by order of the chaplain of that day, the 
Rev. Godfrey Pope. 

There is but one authentic portrait of Henry 
Fielding. This is the pen-and-ink sketch drawn 
from memory by Hogarth, long after Fielding's 

1 The fifth word is generally given as " datum." But the 
above version, which has been verified at Lisbon, may be 
accepted as correct. 

'^ Bible in Spain ^ 1843, i- ^' 



25 6 Henry Fielding 

death, to serve as a frontispiece for Murphy's 
edition of his works. It was engraved \r\ facsimile 
by James Basire, with such success that the 
artist is said to have mistaken an impression of 
the plate (without its emblematic border) for his 
own drawing. Hogarth's sketch is the sole 
source of all the portraits, more or less *' ro- 
manced," which are prefixed to editions of Field- 
ing ; and also, there is some reason to suspect, of 
the dubious little miniature, still in possession of 
his descendants, which figures in Hutchins's His- 
tory of Dorset and elsewhere. More than one 
account has been given of the way in which the 
drawing was produced. The most effective, and, 
unfortunately, the most popular, version has, of 
course, been selected by Murphy. In this he 
tells us that Hogarth, being unable to recall his 
dead friend's features, had recourse to a profile 
cut in paper by a lady, who possessed the happy 
talent which Pope ascribes to Lady Burlington.^ 
Setting aside the fact that^ as Hogarth's eye- 
memory was marvellous, this story is highly im- 
probable, it was expressly contradicted by George 



1 Works, 1762, i. 48. Nichols [Genuine Works of 
Hogartk/ui. (1817,) 350,) gives the name of this lady, who, 
it appears, was the Margaret Collier already mentioned as 
one of the party on the " Queen of Portugal." 



A Memoir 257 

Steevens in 1781,^ and by John Ireland in 1798,^ 
both of whom, from their relations with Hogarth's 
family, were likely to be credibly informed. 
Steevens, after referring to Murphy's fable, says, 
*' I am assured that our artist began and finished 
the head in the presence of his wife and another 
lady. He had no assistance but from his own 
memory, which, on such occasions, was remark- 
ably tenacious." Ireland, gives us as the simple 
fact the following: — " Hogarth being told, after 
his friend's death, that a portrait was wanted as a 
frontispiece to his works, sketched this from 
memory.'' According to the inscription on 
Basire's plate, it represents Fielding at the age 
of forty-eight, or in the year of his death. This, 
however, can only mean that it represents him as 
Hogarth had last seen him. But long before he 
died, disease had greatly altered his appearance ; 
and he must have been little more than a shadow 
of the handsome Harry Fielding, who wrote 
farces for Mrs. Clive, and heard the chim.es at 
midnight. As he himself says in the Voyage to 
Lisbon, he had lost his teeth,^ and the consequent 
falling-in of the lips is plainly perceptible in the 
profile. The shape of the Roman nose, which 

Biographical Anecdotes of Hogarth, p. 131. 
^Hogarth Illustrated, iii. 291. 
^Journal, etc., 1755, p. 203. 



258 Henry Fielding 

ColonelJames irreverently styled a ** proboscis,"^ 
would, however, remain unaltered, and it is still 
possible to divine a curl, half humorous, half 
ironic, in the short upper lip. The eye, appar- 
ently, was dark and deep-set. Oddly enough, 
the chin, to the length of which he had himself 
referred in the Champion, does not appear abnor- 
mal.^ Beyond the fact that he was above six 
feet in height, and, until the gout had broken his 

1 Amelia^ Bk. xi. ch. i. 

2 In the bust of Fielding which Miss Margaret Thomas 
was commissioned by Mr. R. A. Kinglake to execute for the 
Somerset Valhalla, the Shire-Hall at Taunton, these points 
have been carefully considered ; and the sculptor has suc- 
ceeded in producing a work which, while it suggests the 
mingling of humour and dignity that is Fielding's chief char- 
acteristic, is also generally faithful to Hogarth's indications. 
From these, indeed, it is impossible to deviate. Not only 
is his portrait unique, for Murphy says expressly ( Works^ 
1762, i. 47) that no portrait of Fielding had ever been made 
previously; but it was admitted to be like Fielding by 
Fielding's friends. Miss Thomas's bust was placed in the 
Shire Hall, 4th September, 1883 ; and the following in- 
scription was written for it by James Russell Lowell, by 
whom it was unveiled : 

" He looked on naked nature unashamed. 

And saw the Sphinx, now bestial, now divine, 
In change and rechange ; he nor praised nor blamed. 
But drew her as he saw with fearless line. 



A Memoir 259 

constitution, unusually robust, Murphy adds 
nothing further to our idea of his personal appear- 
ance. 

That other picture of his character^ traced and 
retraced (often with much exaggeration of out- 
line), is so familiar in English literature, that it 
cannot now be materially altered or amended. 
Yet it is impossible not to wish that it were de- 
rived from some less prejudiced or more trust- 
worthy witnesses than those who have spoken, — 
say, for example, from Lyttelton or Allen. 
There are always signs that Walpole's malice, and 
Smollett's animosity, and the rancour of Richard- 
son, have had too much to do with the represen- 
tation ; and even Murphy and Lady Mary are 
scarcely persons whom one would select as ideal 
biographers. The latter is probably right in com- 
paring her cousin to Sir Richard Steele. ^ Both 
were generous, kindly, brave, and sensitive ; both 
were improvident ; both loved women and little 
children ; both sinned often, and had their mo- 
ments of sincere repentance ; to both was given 
that irrepressible hopefulness, and full delight 

Did he good service ? God must judge, not we. 

Manly he was, and generous and sincere ; 
English in all, of genius blithely free : 

Who loves a Man may see his image here." 
'^ Letters y etc., i86i, ii. 283. 



26o Henry Fielding 

of being which forgets to-morrow in to-day. 
That Henry Fielding was wild and reckless in 
his youth it would be idle to contest ; — indeed it 
is an intelligible, if not a necessary, consequence 
of his physique and his temperament. But it is 
not fair to speak of him as if his youth lasted for- 
ever. " Critics and biographers," says Mr. Leslie 
Stephen, ''have dwelt far too exclusively upon 
the uglier side of his Bohemian life ; " and Field- 
ing himself, in the Jacobite's Journal, complains 
sadly that his enemies have traced his impeachment 
'' even to his boyish Years.'' That he who was 
prodigal as a lad was prodigal as a man may be 
conceded ; that he who was sanguine at twenty 
would be sanguine at forty (although this is less 
defensible) may also be allowed. But, if we 
press for ''better assurance than Bardolph," 
there is absolutely no good evidence that Field- 
ing's career after his marriage materially differed 
from that of other men struggling for a livelihood, 
hampered with ill-health, and exposed to all the 
shifts and humiliations of necessity. If any por- 
trait of him is to be handed down to posterity, 
let it be the last rather than the first ; — not the 
Fielding of the green-room and the tavern — of 
Covent Garden frolics and " modern conversa- 
tions ; " but the energetic magistrate, the tender 
husband and father, the kindly host of his poorer 



A Memoir 261 

friends, the practical philanthropist, the patient 
and magnanimous hero of the Vo/age to Lisbon. 
If these things be remembered, it will seem of 
minor importance that to his dying day he never 
knew the value of money, or that he forgot his 
troubles over a chicken and champagne.^ And 
even his improvidence was not without its excus- 
able side. Once — so runs the legend^ — Andrew 
Millar made him an advance to meet the claims 
of an importunate tax-gatherer. Carrying it home, 
he met a friend, in even worse straits than his 
own ; and the money changed hands. When the 
tax-gatherer arrived there was nothing but the 
answer — '' Friendship has called for the money 
and had it ; let the collector call again." Justice, 
it is needless to say, was satisfied by a second 

iQf this latter faculty Professor Saintsbury says: 

«* Lady Mary's view of his [Fielding's] childlike enjoy- 
ment of the moment has been, I think, much exaggerated 
by posterity, and was probably not a little mistaken by the 
lady herself. There are two moods in which the motto is 
carp^ diem ; one a mood of simply childish hurry, the other 
where behind the enjoyment of the moment lurks, and 
which the enjoyment of the moment is not a little 
heightened by, that vast ironic consciousness of the before 
and after, which I at least see everywhere in the background 
of Fielding's work." (Introduction to Dent's edition of 
Fielding, 1893, i- xxv.-vi.) 

' G entleinaii' s Magazine ^ August, 1786. 



262 Henry Fielding 

advance from the bookseller. But who shall 
condemn the man of whom such a story can be 
told? 

The literary work of Fielding is so inextricably 
interwoven with what is known of his life that 
most of it has been examined in the course of the 
foregoing narrative. What remains to be said, is 
chiefly in summary of what has been said already. 
As a dramatist he has no eminence ; and though 
his plays do not deserve the sweeping condem- 
nation with which Macaulay once spoke of them 
in the House of Commons, they are not likely to 
attract any critics but those for whom the inferior 
efforts of a great genius possess a morbid fasci- 
nation. Some of them serve, in a measure, to 
illustrate his career : others contain hints and 
situations which he afterwards worked into his 
novels ; but the only ones that possess real stage 
qualities are those which he borrowed from 
Regnard and Moliere. Don Quixote in England, 
Pasqiiin, the Historical Register, can claim no 
present consideration commensurate with that 
which they received as contemporary satires, and 
their interest is mainly antiquarian ; while Tom 
Thumb and the Covent-Garden Tragedy, the 
former of which would make the reputation of a 
smaller man, can scarcely hope to be remembered 
beside Amelia or Jonathan Wild, Nor can it be 



A Memoir 263 

admitted that, as a periodical writer, Fielding was 
at his best. In spite of effective passages, his 
essays remain far below the work of the great 
AugustanS; and are not above the level of many 
of their less illustrious imitators. That instinct 
of popular selection, which retains a faint hold 
upon the Rambler, the Adventurer, the V/orld 
and the Connoisseur, or at least consents to give 
them honourable interment as '' British Essay- 
ists " in a secluded corner of the shelves, has 
made no pretence to any preservation, or even 
any winnowing^ of the Champion and the True 
Patriot. Fielding's papers are learned and ingen- 
ious ; they are frequently humorous ; they are often 
earnest ; but it must be a loiterer in literature who, 
in these days, except for antiquarian or biographical 
purposes, can honestly find it worth while to con- 
sult" them. His pamphlets and projects are more 
valuable, if only that they prove him to have 
looked curiously and sagaciously at social and 
political problems, and to have striven, as far as 
in him lay, to set the crooked straight. Their 
import, to-day, is chiefly that of links in a chain 
— of contributions to a progressive literature 
which has since travelled into regions unforeseen 
by the author of the Proposal for the Poor, and 
the Inquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of 
Robbers. As such, they have their place in that 



264 Henry Fielding 

library of Political Economy of which M'CulIoch 
has catalogued the riches. It is not, however, 
by his pamphlets, his essays, or his plays that 
Fielding is really memorable ; it is by his triad 
of novels, and the surpassing study in irony of 
Jonathan Wild, In Joseph Andrews we have the 
first sprightly runnings of genius that, after much 
uncertainty, had at last found its fitting vein, but 
was yet doubtful and undisciplined : in Tom 
Jones the perfect plan has come, with the per- 
fected method and the assured expression. 
There is an inevitable loss of that fine wayward- 
ness v/hich is sometimes the result of untrained 
effort, but there is the general gain of order, and 
the full production which results of art. The 
highest point is reached in Tom Jones, which is 
the earliest definite and authoritative manifesta- 
tion of the modern novel. Its relation to De 
Foe is that of the vertebrate to the invertebrate : 
to Richardson, that of the real to the ideal — one 
might almost add, the impossible.-^ It can be 
compared to no contemporary English work of 
its own kind ; and if we seek for its parallel at 

1 In this connection the reader may be profitably referred 
to the admirable dialogue between Fielding and Richardson 
in T/ie New Lucian of the late accomplished scholar and 
critic, Mr. H. D. Traill (Revised and enlarged edition, 
1900, pp. 268-286). 



A Memoir 265 

the time of publication we must go beyond litera- 
ture to art — to the masterpiece of that great 
pictorial satirist who was Fielding's friend. In 
both Fielding and Hogarth there is the same con- 
structive power, the same rigid sequence of cause 
and effect, the same significance of detail, the 
same side-light of allusion. Both have the same 
hatred of affectation and hypocrisy — the same un- 
erring insight into character. Both are equally 
attracted by striking contrasts and comic situa- 
tions ; in both there is the same declared morality 
of purpose, coupled with the same sturdy virility 
of expression. One, it is true, leaned more 
strongly to tragedy, the other to comedy. But 
if Fielding had painted pictures, it would have 
been in the style of the Marriage a la mode ; if 
Hogarth had written novels^ they would have 
been in the style of Tom Jones. In the gentler 
and more subdued Amelia, with its tender and 
womanly central-figure, there is a certain change 
of plan, due to altered conditions — it may be^ to 
an altered philosophy of art. The narrative is 
less brisk and animated ; the character-painting 
less broadly humorous ; the philanthropic element 
more strongly developed. To trace the influence 
of these three great works in succeeding writers 
would hold us too long. It may, nevertheless, be 
safely asserted that there are few English novels 



266 Henry Fielding 

of manners, written since Fielding's day, which do 
not descend from him as from their fount and 
source ; and that more than one of our modern 
masters betray unmistakable signs of a form and 
fashion studied minutely from their frank and 
manly ancestor. 



POSTSCRIPT 

A FEW particulars respecting Fielding's family 
and posthumous works can scarcely be 
omitted from the present memoir. It has been 
stated that by his first wife he had one daugh- 
ter, the Eleanor Harriot who accompanied him 
to Lisbon, and survived him, although Mr. 
Keightley says, but without giving his authority, 
she did not survive him long. Of his family by 
Mary Daniel, the eldest son, William, to whose 
birth reference has already been made, was bred 
to the law, became a barrister of the Middle 
Temple eminent as a special pleader, and ulti- 
mately a Westminster magistrate. He died in 
October, 1820, at the Police Office, Queen- 
Square at the age of seventy-three. He seemed 
to have shared his father's conversational quali- 
ties,^ and, like him, to have been a strenuous ad- 
vocate of the poor and unfortunate. Southey, 
writing from Keswick in 1830 to Sir Egerton 

1 Videy Lockhart's Life of Scott, chap, i., and Bedford Cor- 
respondence^ 1846, iii. 41 in., where it is said that " he was 
the delight of the circuit.'* 



268 Postscript 

Brydges, speaks of a meeting he had in St. 
James's Park, about 1817, with one of the 
novelist's sons. *' He was then/' says Southey, 
^* a fine old man, though visibly shaken by time : 
he received me in a manner which had much of 
old courtesy about it, and I looked upon him 
with great interest for his father's sake." The 
date, and the fact that William Fielding had had 
a paralytic stroke, make it almost certain that this 
was he ; and a further reference by Southey to 
his religious opinions is confirmed by the obituary 
notice in the Gentleman s^ which speaks of him 
as a worthy and pious man.* The names and 
baptisms of the remaining children, as supplied 
for these pages by the late Colonel Chester, were 
Mary Amelia, baptised January 6, 1749 ; Sophia, 
January 21, 1750 ; Louisa, December 3, 1752; 
and Allen, April 6, 1754, about a month before 
Fielding removed to Ealing. All these baptisms 
took place at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, from 
the registers of which these particulars were ex- 
tracted. The eldest daughter, Mary Amelia, 
does not appear to have long survived, for the 
same registers record her burial on the 17th De- 
cember, 1749. Allen Fielding became a clergy- 
man, and died, according to Burke, in 1823, be- 
ing then vicar of St. Stephen's, Canterbury. He 
1 1820, ii. 373-4. 



Postscript 269 

left a family of four sons and three daughters. 
One of the sons. George, became rector of North 
Ockendon, Essex, and married, in 1825, Mary 
Rebecca, daughter of Ferdinand Hanbury-Wil- 
liams, and grandniece of Fielding's friend and 
school-fellow Sir Charles. This lady, who so 
curiously linked the present and the past, died at 
Hereford Square, Brompton, in her eighty-fifth 
year. Mrs. Fielding herself (Mary Daniel) ap- 
pears to have attained a good old age.^ Her 
death took place at Canterbury on the nth of 
March, 1802, perhaps in the house of her son 
Allen, who is stated by Nichols in his Leicester- 
shire to have been rector in 1803 of St. Cosmus 
and Damian-in-the-Blean. After her husband's 
death, her children were educated by their uncle 
John and Ralph Allen, the latter of whom — says 
Murphy — made a very generous annual donation 
for that purpose. In 1762, when Murphy 
v/rote, only William, Allen and Sophia were alive, 
and to these three the Master of Prior Park at 
his death in 1704, bequeathed the sum of ^100 
each.^ 

1 A portrait of her by Francis Cotes, R. A., described by 
one who saw it as " a very fine drawing of a very ugly 
woman," was sold not many years since at Christie's. 

2 Ralph Allen also left ;,f icx) to Fielding's sister Sarah 
( Vide, Will in Peach's Historic Houses of Bath, Second 



270 Postscript 

Among Fielding's other connections it is only 
necessary to speak of his sister Sarah, and his 
above-mentioned brother John. Sarah Fielding 
continued to write ; and in addition to a third 
volume of David Simple, published the Governess, 
1749 ; the History of the Countess Dellwyn, ^759 J 
a translation of Xenophon's Memorabilia; a dra- 
matic fable called the Cr/ (with Margaret Collier's 
sister Jane), and some other forgotten books. 
During the latter part of her life she lived at Bath, 
where she was highly popular, both for her personal 
character and her accomplishments. She had a 
cottage in Church Lane, Widcombe. She died in 
1768 ; and her friend. Dr. John Hoadly, who 
wrote the verses to the Rake's Progress, erected 
a monument to her memory in the Abbey Church. 

" Her unaffected Manners, candid Mind, 
Her Heart benevolent, and Soul resign'd ; 
Were more her Praise than all she knew or thought 
Though Athens Wisdom to her Sex she taught," 

says he ; but in mere facts the inscription is^ as 
he modestly styles it, a '* deficient Memorial,'' 
for she is described as having been born in 17 14 

Series, 1884, p. 149). It may be added that Sophia Field- 
ing must have lived far into this century since she occu- 
pied a house near Canterbury during the entire period of 
ninety years for which her father had signed the lease, (Hen- 
derson's Recollections of John Adolphus^ 187 1, 227). 



Postscript 271 

instead of 17 10, and as being the daughter of 
General Henry instead of General Edmund Field- 
ing. John Fielding, the novelist's half-brother, 
as already stated^ succeeded him at Bow Street, 
though the post has been sometimes claimed (on 
Bosweirs authority) for Mr. Welch. The mis- 
take no doubt arose from the circumstance that 
they frequently worked in concert. Previous to 
his appointment as a magistrate, John Fielding, 
in addition to assisting his brother, seems to have 
been largely concerned in the promotion of that 
curious enterprise, the '' Universal-Register- 
Office/' in which Henry Fielding held shares.^ It 
was often advertised in the Covent-Garden Jour- 
nal ; and appears to have been an Estate Office, 
Lost Property Office, Servants' Registry, Curi- 
osity Shop, and multifarious General Agency. As 
a magistrate, in spite of his blindness, John Field- 
ing was remarkably energetic, and is reported to 
have known more than 3,000 thieves by their 
voices alone, and could recognise them when 
brought into Court. There are many references 
to John Fielding in the periodical and other liter- 
ature of the day, e. g., in Churchiirs Ghost and 
Goldsmith's** Rhymed Letters to Mr. Bunbury." 
Besides professional works, a description of 
London and Westminster is often ascribed to 
1 Cf, Amelia, 1752, Bk. v. ch. 9 (p. 170). 



272 Postscript 

him, but he denied the authorship.^ He was 
knighted in 1761, and died at Brompton Place in 
1780.^ Lyttelton, who had become Sir George 
in 175 1, was raised to the peerage as Baron 
Lyttelton of Frankley three years after Fielding's 
death. He died in 1773. In 1760-5 he pub- 
lished his Dialogues of the Dead, profanely char- 
acterised by Mr. Walpole as '' Dead Dialogues." 
No. 28 of these is a colloquy between '' Plutarch, 
Charon, and a Modern Bookseller," and it con- 
tains the following reference to Fielding : — 
'* We have [says Mr. Bookseller] another writer 
of these imaginary histories, one who has not 
long since descended to these regions. His 
name is Fielding ; and his works, as I have 
heard the best judges say, have a true spirit of 
comedy, and an exact representation of nature, 
with fine moral touches. He has not indeed 
given lessons of pure and consummate virtue, but 
he has exposed vice and meanness with all the 
powers of ridicule." It is perhaps excusable that 
Lawrence, like Roscoe and others, should have 
attributed this to Lyttelton ; but the preface 
nevertheless assigns it, with two other dialogues, 

1 Public Advertiser y 6 January, 1777. 

2 He was more fortunate than his famous elder brother, 
for there are at least three portraits of him, two by Na- 
thaniel Hone, and one by the Rev. M. W. Peters, R. A. 



Postscript 273 

to a ** different hand." They were, in fact, the 
first essays in authorship of that illustrious blue- 
stocking, Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu. 

Fielding's only posthumous works are the 
Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon^ and the comedy 
of The Fathers; or, The Good Natufd Man. 
The Journal was published on the 2 5 February, 
1755, and the advertisement announced that it 
was ^* printed for the Benefit of his [Fielding's] 
Wife and Children." Notwithstanding a state- 
ment in the " Dedication to the Public" that it 
remained '^as it came from the hands of the 
author," the first issue seems to have been con- 
siderably edited. The Ryde landlady appears as 
^' Mrs. Humphreys," and several passages relating 
to the Captain of the '' Queen of Portugal/' his 
nephew, and Fielding himself, were withheld, 
probably from prudential motives. But towards 
the close of the year, and after the earthquake at 
Lisbon, the volume was reprinted with the same 
date, dedication and title-page, but, as regards 
the text, corresponding in all respects with the 
version put forward by Murphy in the Works of 
1762.^ Both of the versions of 1755 included a 

* The circumstances connected with the publication of 
these two versions are fully discussed in the " Introduction " 
to the present writer's reprint of the yotivnal^ issued in 
1892, by Messrs. Whittingham & Co. 



2 74 Postscript 

'* Fragment of a Comment on Bolingbroke's Es- 
says/' which Essays Mallet had issued in March, 
1754. This fragment must therefore have been 
begun in the last months of Fielding's life ; and, 
according to Murphy, he made very careful prep- 
aration for the work, as attested by long extracts 
from the Fathers and the leading controversial- 
ists, which, after his death, were preserved by 
his brother. Beyond a passage or two in Rich- 
ardson's Correspondence, and a sneering reference 
by Walpole to Fielding's '' account how his 
dropsy was treated and teased by an innkeeper's 
wife in the Isle of Wight," there is nothing to 
show how the Journal was received, still less that 
it brought any substantial pecuniary relief to 
** those innocents," to whom reference had been 
made in the " Dedication." 

The storv of The Good Natur'd Man, which 
was not placed upon the stage until 1778, is 
curious. According to the " Advertisement," after 
it had been set aside in 1742, Mt seems to have 
been submitted to Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. 
Sir Charles was just starting for Russia, as En- 
voy Extraordinary. Whether Fielding's MS. 
went with him or not is unknown ; but it was 
lost until 177) o^ ^77^^ when it was recovered in 
a tattered and forlorn condition by Mr. Johnes, 
1 Vu/e, chap, iv., p. 94. 



Postscript 275 

M. P. for Cardigan, from a person who enter- 
tained a very poor and even contemptuous opin- 
ion of its merits. Mr. Johnes thought other- 
wise. He sent it to Garrick, who at once rec- 
ognised it as *^ Harry Fielding's Comedy." Re- 
vised and retouched by the actor and Sheridan, 
it was produced at Drury Lane on the 30th No- 
vember, 1778, as The Fathers, with a Prologue 
and Epilogue by Garrick. For nine nights it 
was received with interest, and even some flick- 
ering enthusiasm. It was then withdrawn ; and 
there is no likelihood that it will ever be re- 
vived.^ 

The consultation of contemporary newspapers 
made necessary in connection with the issue of 
Fielding's Journal, resulted in the discovery that 
he possessed an extensive library. This was an- 
nounced for sale in February, 1755, four months 
alter his death, the auctioneer being Mr. Baker 
of York Street, Covent Garden, by whom it was 
disposed of on four successive evenings. It con- 
sisted of 6)3 lots and realised ;^3 64^ 7, i. It 
was rich in law and classics, poetry and drama, 
and included many valuable folios. .Further men- 

1 Mr. Baillie of Norfolk Square, London, has a letter from 
Sir John Fielding to William Hunter, begging him to go to 
the "Author's Widow's night" i^Athenuum^ I February, 
1890). 



276 Postscript 

tion of it here is however needless, as it has been 
sufficiently described in an earlier volume of this 
series.^ But it may be added in this place that 
if, as is sometimes contended, Henry Fielding 
made parade of learning, he seems to have been 
exceptionally well provided with a scholar's stock 
in trade. 

iSee "Fielding's Library" in Eighteenth Century Vi- 
gnettes , Third Series, pp. 163-177. 



APPENDIX NO. I 

FIELDING AND SARAH ANDREW 

BY the courtesy of the editor of the Atherueuniy 
the following letter is here reprinted from 
that paper for 2d June, 1883 : 

75 Eaton Rise, Ealing. 
In 1855, when Mr. Frederick Lawrence pub- 
lished his Life of Henry Fielding, he thus re- 
ferred (ch. vii. p. 67) toan ** early passage " in the 
novelist's career: *'On his [Fielding's] return 
from Leyden he conceived a desperate attach- 
ment for his cousin, Miss Sarah Andrew [sic]. 
That young lady's friends had, however, so little 
confidence in her wild kinsman, that they took 
the precaution of removing her out of his reach ; 
not, it is said, until he had attempted an abduc- 
tion or elopement. . . . His cousin was 
afterwards married to a plain country gentleman, 
and in that alliance found, perhaps, more solid 
happiness than she would have experienced in an 
early and improvident marriage with her gifted 
kinsman. Her image, however, was never ef- 
faced from his recollection ; and there is a charm- 



278 Appendix I 

ing picture (so tradition tells) of her luxuriant 
beauty in the portrait of Sophia Western, in Tom 
Jones,'' Mr. Lawrence gave no hint or sign of 
his authority for this unexpected and hitherto un- 
recorded incident. But the review of his book 
in the A//i^na?wm for loth November, 1855, elicited 
the following notes on the subject from Mr. 
George Roberts, sometime mayor of Lyme, and 
author of a brief history of that town. '* Henry 
Fielding," wrote Mr. Roberts, ^* was at Lyme 
Regis, Dorset, for the purpose of carrying off an 
heiress. Miss Andrew, the daughter of Solomon 
Andrew, Esq., the last of a series of merchants 
of that name at Lyme. The young lady was liv- 
ing with Mr. Andrew Tucker, one of the corpo- 
ration, who sent her away to Modbury, in South 
Devon, where she married an ancestor of the 
present Rev. Mr. Rhodes, an eloquent preacher 
of Bath, who possesses the Andrew property. 
Mr. Rhodes's son married the young lady upon 
his return to Modbury from Oxford. The cir- 
cumstances about the attempts of Henry Fielding 
to carry off the young lady, handed down in the 
ancient Tucker family, were doubted by the late 
head of his family, Dr. Rhodes, of Shapwick, 
Uplyme, etc. Since his decease I have found an 
entry in the old archives of Lyme about the fears 
of Andrew Tucker, Esq., the guardian, as to his 



Appendix I 279 

safety, owing to the behaviour of Henry Fielding 
and his attendant, or man. According to the 
tradition of the Tucker family, given in my His- 
tory of Lyme, Sophia Western was intended to 
pourtray Miss Andrew/' To Mr. Roberts's com- 
munication succeeded that of another correspond- 
ent — one '' P. S." — who gave some additional 
particulars : '' There is now at Bellair, in the im- 
mediate neighbourhood of Exeter the portrait of 
* Sophia Western ' [Miss Andrew]. Bellair be- 
longs to the Rhodes family, and was the residence 
of the late George Ambrose Rhodes, Fellow of 
Caius College, and formerly Physician to the 
Devon and Exeter Hospital. He himself directed 
my attention to this picture. In the board-room 
of the above hospital there is also the three- 
quarter length portrait of Ralph Allen, Esq., the 
'Squire Allworthy ' of the same novel.'' No 
further contribution appears to have been made 
to the literature of the subject. The late Mr. 
Keightley, in his articles on Lawrence's book in 
Fraser's Ma^a\ine for January and February, 
1858, did, as a matter of fact, refer to the story 
and Mr. Roberts's confirmation of it ; but beyond 
pointing out that Miss Andrew could not have 
been the original of Sophia Western, who is de- 
clared by Fielding himself {Tom Jones, bk. xiii. 
ch. i.) to have been the portrait of his first wife, 



28o Appendix I 

Charlotte Cradock, he added nothing to the ex- 
isting information. 

When I began to prepare the sketch of Field- 
ing recently included in Mr. John Morley's series 
of '' English Men of Letters/' matters stood at 
this point, and I had little hope that any supple- 
mentary details could be obtained. I was, in- 
deed, fortunate enough to discover that Burke's 
Landed Gentry for 1858 gave the year of Miss 
Andrews's marriage as 1726; and inquiries at 
Modbury, though they did not actually confirm 
this, practically did so, by disclosing the fact that 
a child of Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose Rhodes w^as 
baptised at that place in April, 1727. It became 
clear, therefore, that instead of being subsequent 
to Fielding's ** return from Leyden " in 1728, as 
Law^rence supposed, the date of the reported at- 
tempt at elopement could not have been later 
than 1725 or the early part of 1726 — so far back, 
in fact, in Fielding's life that I confess to having 
entertained a private doubt whether it ever oc- 
curred at all. That doubt has now been com- 
pletely removed by the appearance of some new 
and wholly unlooked-for evidence. 

After the publication in 1858 of his Fraser 
papers, Mr. Keightley seems to have continued 
his researches with the intention of writing a final 
biography of Fielding. In this, which was to in- 



Appendix I 281 

elude a reprint of the Journal of a Voyage to 
Lisbon and a critical examination of Fielding's 
works, he made considerable progress ; and by 
the courtesy of his nephew, Mr. Alfred C. 
Lyster, his MSS. have been placed at my dis- 
posal. Much that relates to Fielding's life has 
manifestly the disadvantage of having been written 
more than twenty years ago^ and it reproduces 
some aspects of Fielding which have now been 
abandoned ; but in the elucidation and expansion 
of the Sarah Andrew episode Mr. Keightley 
leaves little to be desired. His first step, appar- 
ently, was to communicate with Mr. Roberts, 
who furnished him (6th May, 1859) with the fol- 
lowing transcript or summary of the original 
record in the Register Book of Lyme Regis : 

*^John Bowdidge, Jun.^ was Mayor when 
Andrew Tucker, Gent., one of the corporation, 
caused Henry Fielding, Gent., and his servant or 
companion, Joseph Lewis — both now and for 
some time past residing in the borough — to be 
bound over to keep the peace, as he was in fear 
of his life or some bodily hurt to be done or to 
be procured to be done to him by H. Fielding 
and his man. Mr. A. Tucker feared that the 
man would beat, maim, or kill him. 14th No- 
vember, 172^." 

We thus get the exact date of the occurrence, 



282 Appendix I 

14th November, 1725 (f. ^., when Fielding was 
eighteen), the fact that he had been staying for 
some time in Lyme at that date, and the name of 
his servant. In a further letter of 14th May, 
1859, Mr. Roberts referred Mr. Keightley to 
Mr. James Davidson, a Devon antiquary, in 
whose History of Newenham Abbey, Longmans, 
1845 (surely a most out-of-the-way source of in- 
formation I), he found the following, derived by 
the author from the Rhodes family (pp. 165, 166) : 
'*The estate [of Shapwick, near Axminster] 
continued but a short time the property of the 
noble family of Petre, being sold by William the 
fourth baron, on the loth of November, 1670, to 
Solomon Andrew of Lyme Regis, a gentleman, 
who possessed a considerable property obtained 
by his ancestors and himself in mercantile affairs. 
From him it descended to his only son, who died 
at the age of twenty-nine years, leaving two sons 
and a daughter, the latter of whom, by the decease 
of her brothers, became heiress to the estate. 
This young lady was placed under the guardian- 
ship of Mr. Rhodes of Modbury, and her uncle, 
Mr. Tucker of Lyme, in whose family she re- 
sided. At this time Henry Fielding, whose very 
objectionable but once popular works have placed 
his name high on the list of novel-writers, was an 
occasional visitor at the place, and enraptured 



Appendix I 283 

with the charms and the more solid attractions of 
Miss Andrew, paid her the most assiduous atten- 
tion. The views of her guardians were, how- 
ever, opposed to a connection with so dissipated, 
though well-born and well-educated a youth, who 
is said to have in consequence made a desperate 
attempt to carry the lady off by force on a Sun- 
day, when she was on her way to church. The 
residence of the heiress was then removed to 
Modbury, and the disappointed admirer found 
consolation in the society of a beauty at Salisbury 
whom he married." 

There are some manifest misconceptions in this 
account, due, no doubt, to Mr. Davidson's ig- 
norance of the exact period of the occurrence 
as established by the above record in the Lyme 
archives. In the first place, it must have been 
four or five years at least before Fielding con- 
soled himself with Miss Charlotte Cradock, and 
nearly ten (according to the received date) before 
he married her. Again, in saying that he was 
*' dissipated," Mr. Davidson must have been 
thinking of his conventional after-character, for 
in 1725 he was but a boy fresh from Eton, and 
could scarcely have established any reputation as 
a rake. Nor is there anything in our whole 
knowledge of him to justify us in supposing that 
he was at any time a mere mercenary fortune- 



284 Appendix I 

hunter. Finally, according to one of Mr. 
Roberts's letters to Mr. Keightley, timorous Mr. 
Tucker of Lyme had a very different reason from 
his personal shortcomings for objecting to Field- 
ing as a suitor to his ward. '' The Tucker 
Family," says Mr. Roberts, ** by tradition con- 
sider themselves tricked out of the heiress, Miss 
Andrew, by Mr. Rhodes of Modbury, Mr. 
Andrew Tucker intending the lady for his own 
son." Nevertheless, these reservations made, 
Mr. Davidson's version, although ex parte, sup- 
plies colour and detail to the story. From a 
pedigree which he gives in his book, it further 
appears that Mrs. Rhodes died on the 22d of 
August, 1783, aged seventy-three. This would 
make her fifteen in 1725. There remained Law- 
rence's enigmatical declaration that she was 
Fielding's cousin. Briefly stated, the result of 
Mr. Keightley's inquiries in this direction tends 
to show that Miss Andrew's mother was con- 
nected with the family of Fielding's mother, the 
Goulds of Sharpham Park ; and as Mr. Law- 
rence does not seem to have been aware of the ex- 
istence of Davidson's book, or to have had any 
acquaintance with the traditions or archives of 
Lyme, Mr. Keightley surmises, very plausibly, 
that his unvouched data must have been derived, 
directly or indirectly, from the Rhodes family. 



Appendix I 285 

Mr. Keightley also ingeniously attempts to 
connect Fielding's subsequent residence at 
Leyden (1726-28?) with this affair by assuming 
that he was despatched to the Dutch university, 
instead of Oxford or Cambridge, in order to 
keep him out of harm's way. This is, however, 
to travel somewhat from the realm of fact into 
that of romance. At the same time, it must be 
admitted that the materials for romance are 
tempting. A charming girl, who is also an heir- 
ess ; a pusillanimous guardian with ulterior views 
of his own ; a handsome and high-spirited young 
suitor ; a faithful attendant ready to "' beat, maim, 
or kill " in his master's behalf ; a frustrated elope- 
ment and a compulsory visit to the mayor — all 
these, with the picturesque old town of Lyme 
for a background, suggest a most appropriate first 
act to Harry Fielding's biographical tragi-comedy. 
But to do such a theme justice we must 

«« call up him that left half-told " 

the story of Denis DuvaL 



APPENDIX No. II 

FIELDING AND MRS. HUSSEY 

At pp. 124-5, vol. i., of J. T. Smith's Nolle- 
kens and his Times, 1828, occurs the following 
note : 

'' Henry Fielding was fond of colouring his 
pictures of life with the glowing and variegated 
tints of Nature, by conversing with persons of 
every situation and calling, as I have frequently 
been informed by one of my [i.e., J. T. Smith's] 
great-aunts, the late Mrs. Hussey, who knew 
him intimately. I have heard her say, that Mr. 
Fielding never suffered his talent for sprightly 
conversation to mildew for a moment ; and that 
his manners were so gentlemanly, that even with 
the lower classes, with which he frequently con- 
descended particularly to chat, such as Sir Roger 
de Coverley's old friends, the Vauxhall water- 
men, they seldom outstepped the limits of pro- 
priety. My aunt, who lived to the age of 105, 
had been blessed with four husbands, and her 
name had twice been changed to that of Hussey: 
she was of a most delightful disposition, of a re- 



Appendix II 287 

tentive memory, highly entertaining, and liberally 
communicative ; and to her I have frequently 
been obliged for an interesting anecdote. She 
was, after the death of her second husband, Mr. 
Hussey, a fashionable sacque and mantua-maker, 
and lived in the Strand, a few doors west of the 
residence of the celebrated Le Beck, a famous 
cook, who had a large portrait of himself for the 
sign of his house, at the north-west corner of 
Half-moon Street, since called Little Bedford 
Street. One day Mr. Fielding observed to Mrs. 
Hussey, that he was then engaged in writing a 
novel, which he thought would be his best pro- 
duction ; and that he intended to introduce in it 
the characters of all his friends. Mrs. Hussey, 
with a smile, ventured to remark, that he must 
have many niches, and that surely they must al- 
ready be filled. ' I assure you, my dear madam,' 
replied he, ' there shall be a bracket for a bust of 
you.** Some time after this, he informed Mrs. 
Hussey that the work was in the press ; but, 
immediately recollecting that he had forgotten his 
promise to her, went to the printer, and was 
time enough to insert, in vol. iii. p. 17 [bk. x. 
ch. iv.], where he speaks of the shape of Sophia 
Western — ' Such charms are there in affability, 
and so sure is it to attract the praises of all kinds 
of people.' — ' !t may, indeed, be compared to 



288 Appendix II 

the celebrated Mrs. Hussey/ To which obser- 
vation he has given the following note : ' A cele- 
brated mantua-maker in the Strand, famous for 
setting off the shapes of women/ " 

There is no reason for supposmg that this neg- 
lected anecdote should not be in all respects 
authentic. In fact, upon the venerated principle 
that 

" there it stands unto this day 
To witness if I lie/^ — 

the existence of the passage and note in Tom 
Jones is practically suflficient argument for its 
veracity. This being so, it surely deserves some 
consideration for the light which it throws on 
Fielding's character. Mrs. Hussey's testimony 
as to his dignified and gentlemanly manners, 
which does not seem to be advanced to meet any 
particular charge, may surely be set against any 
innuendoes of the Burney and Walpole type as 
to his mean environment and coarse conversation. 
And the suggestion that **the characters of all 
his friends " — by which must be intended rather 
mention of them than portraits — are to be found 
in his masterpiece, is fairly borne out by the most 
casual inspection of Tom Jones, especially the 
first edition, where all the proper names are in 
italics. In the dedication alone are references 
to the '' princely Benefactions" of John, Duke 



Appendix II 289 

of Bedford, and to Lyttelton and Ralph Allen, 
both of whom are also mentioned by name in bk. 
xiii. ch. i. The names of Hogarth and Garrick 
also occur frequently. In bk. iv. ch. i, is an 
anecdote of Wilks the player, who had been one 
of Fielding's earliest patrons. The surgeon in 
the story of the '' Man of the Hill " (bk. viii. ch. 
xiii.) '* whose Name began with an R,'' and who 
** was Sergeant-Surgeon to the King," evidently 
stands for Hogarth's Chiswick neighbour, Mr. 
Ranby, by whose advice Fielding was ordered to 
Bath in 1753. Again, he knew, though he did 
not greatly admire, Warburton, to whose learn- 
ing there is a handsome compliment in bk. xiii. 
ch. i. In bk. xv. ch. iv. is the name of another 
friend or acquaintance (also mentioned in the 
Journey from this World to the Next), Hooke of 
the Roman History, who, like the author of Tom 
Jones, had drawn his pen for Sarah, Duchess of 
Marlborough. Bk. xi. ch. iv. contains an anec- 
dote, real or imaginary, of Richard Nash, with 
whom Fielding must certainly have become famil- 
iar in his visits to Bath ; and it is probable that 
Square's medical advisers (bk.xviii. ch. iv.), Dr. 
Harrington and Dr. Brewster, both of whom 
subscribed to the Miscellanies of 1743, were well- 
known Bathonians. Mr. Willoughby, also a 
subscriber, was probably '^ Justice Willoughby 



290 Appendix II 

of Noyle " referred to in bk. viii. ch. xi. 
Whether the use of Handel's name in bk. iv. ch. 
V. is of any significance there is no evidence ; 
but the description in bk. iv. ch. vi. of Con- 
science *' sitting on its Throne in the Mind, like 
the Lord High Chancellor of this Kingdom in 
his Court," and fulfilling its functions **witha 
Knowledge which nothing escapes, a Penetration 
which nothing can deceive, and an Integrity 
which nothing can corrupt," is clearly an oblique 
panegyric of Philip Yorke, Lord Hardwicke, to 
whom, two years later, Fielding dedicated his 
Enquiry into the late Increase of Robbers, etc. 
Besides these, there are references to Bishop 
Hoadly(bk. ii. ch. vii.), Mrs. Whitefield, of the 
*' Bell" at Gloucester, and Mr. Timothy Harris 
(bk. viii. ch. viii.), Mrs. Clive and Mr. Miller 
of the Gardener s Dictionary (bk. ix. ch. i.) ; 
and closer examination would no doubt reveal 
further illusions. Meanwhile the above will be 
sufficient to show that the statement of the " cele- 
brated mantua-maker in the Strand" respecting 
Fielding's friends in Tom Jones is not without 
foundation. 



APPENDIX NO. Ill 

Fielding's will 

In the Athenceum for i February, 1890, Mr. 
George A. Aitken, to whom the public is in- 
debted for so many discoveries in eighteenth- 
century literature, printed an undated will by 
Fielding which is now in the Prerogative court 
of Canterbury. It runs as follows : 

'* In the name of God Amen. I Henry Field- 
ing of the Parish of Ealing in the County of 
Middlesex do hereby give and bequeath unto 
Ralph Allen of Prior Park in the County of 
Somerset Esqr. and to his heirs executors ad- 
ministrators and assigns for ever to the use of the 
said Ralph his heirs, etc., all my estate real and 
personal and whatsoever and do appoint him sole 
executor of this my last will Beseeching him that 
the whole (except my share in the Register of- 
fice) may be sold and forthwith converted into 
money and annuities purchased thereout for the 
lives of my dear wife Mary and my daughters 
Harriet and Sophia and what proportions my 
said executor shall please to reserve to my sons 



292 Appendix III 

William and Allen shall be paid them severally as 
they shall attain the age of twenty and three. 
And as for my shares in the Register or Univer- 
sal Register Office I give ten thereof to my afore- 
said wife seven to my daughter Harriet and three 
to my daughter Sophia, my v/ife to be put in im- 
mediate possession of her shares and my daugh- 
ters of theirs as they shall severally arrive at the 
age of twenty-one the immediate profits to be 
then likewise paid to my two daughters by my 
executor who is desired to retain the same in his 
hands until that time. Witness my hand Henry 
Fielding. Signed and acknowledged as his last 
will and testament by the within named testator 
in presence of Margaret Collier, Rich'd Boor, 
Isabella Ash.'' 

'* On the 14th of November, 1754," says Mr. 
Aitken, *' administration (with the will annexed) 
of the goods, etc., of Henry Fielding at Lisbon, 
deceased, was granted to John Fielding, Esq., 
uncle and guardian lawfully assigned to Harriet 
Fielding, spinster, a minor, and Sophia Fielding, 
an infant for the use and benefit of the minor and 
infant until they were twenty-one ; Ralph Allen, 
Esq., having renounced as well the execution of 
the will as administration of the goods, etc. ; and 
Mary Fielding, the relict, having also renounced 
administration of the goods of the deceased." 



APPENDIX NO. IV 

Extracts From '' A Journal Of A Voyage 
To Lisbon" 

/. The Captain of the '' Queen of Portugal.''' 

Thursday^ June 27. — This morning the captain, 
who lay on shore at his own house, paid us a 
visit in the cabin ; and behaved like an angry 
bashaw, declaring that, had he known we were 
not to be pleased, he would not have carried us 
for^ool. He added many asseverations that he 
was a gentleman, and despised money; not for- 
getting several hints of the presents which had 
been made him for his cabin, of 20, 30, and 40 
guineas, by several gentlemen, over and above 
the sum for which they had contracted. This 
behaviour greatly surprised me, as I knew not 
how to account for it, nothing having happened 
since we parted from the captain the evening be- 
fore in perfect good humour ; and all this broke 
forth on the first moment of his arrival this morn- 
ing. He did not, however, suffer my amaze- 
ment to have any long continuance before he 
clearly show^ed me that all this was meant only 
as an apology to introduce another procrastina- 



294 Appendix IV 

tion (being the fifth) of his weighing anchor ; 
which was now postponed till Saturday, for such 
was his will and pleasure. . . . 

The particular tyrant whose fortune it was to 
stow us aboard laid a farther claim to this appella- 
tion than the bare command of a vehicle of con- 
veyance. He had been the captain of a privateer, 
which he chose to call being in the king's service, 
and thence derived a right of hoisting the military 
ornament of a cockade over the button of his hat. 
He likewise wore a sword of no ordinary length 
by his side, with which he swaggered in his cabin 
among the wretches his passengers, whom he had 
stowed in cupboards on each side. He was a 
person of a very singular character. He had 
taken it into his head that he was a gentleman, 
from those very reasons that proved he was not 
one ; and to show himself a fine gentleman, by a 
behaviour which seemed to insinuate he had 
never seen one. He was, moreover, a man of 
gallantry ; at the age of seventy he had the finical- 
ness of Sir Courtly Nice, with the roughness of 
Surly ; and^ while he was deaf himself, had a 
voice capable of deafening all others. . . . 

A most tragical incident fell out this day at 
sea. While the ship was under sail, but making, 
as will appear, no great way, a kitten, one of four 
of the feline inhabitants of the cabin, fell from the 



Appendix IV 295 

window into the water: an alarm was imme- 
diately given to the captain, who was then upon 
deck, and received it with the utmost concern 
and many bitter oaths. He immediately gave 
orders to the steersman in favour of the poor 
thing, as he called it ; the sails were instantly 
slackened, and all hands, as the phrase is, em- 
ployed to recover the poor animal. I was, I 
own, extremely surprised at all this ; less, indeed, 
at the captain's extreme tenderness than at his 
conceiving any possibility of success ; for if puss 
had had nine thousand instead of nine lives, I 
concluded they had been all lost. The boatswain, 
however, had more sanguine hopes, for, having 
stripped himself of his jacket, breeches, and shirt, 
he leaped boldly into the water, and to my great 
astonishment in a few minutes returned to the 
ship bearing the motionless animal in his mouth. 
Nor was this, I observed, a matter of such great 
difficulty as it appeared to my ignorance, and pos- 
sibly may seem to that of my fresh-water reader ; 
the kitten was now exposed to air and sun on the 
deck, where its life, of which it retained no symp- 
toms, was despaired of by all. 

The captain's humanity, if I may so call it, did 
not so totally destroy his philosophy, as to make 
him yield himself up to affliction on this melan- 
choly occasion. Having felt his loss like a man, 



296 Appendix IV 

he resolved to show he could bear it like one ; 
and, having declared, he had rather have lost a 
cask of rum or brandy, betook himself to thresh- 
ing at backgammon with the Portuguese friar, in 
which innocent amusement they had passed about 
two-thirds of their time. . . . 

But, to return from so long a digression, to 
which the use of so improper an epithet gave oc- 
casion, and to which the novelty of the subject 
allured, I will make the reader amends by con- 
cisely telling him that the captain poured forth 
such a torrent of abuse that I very hastily and 
very foolishly resolved to quit the ship. I gave 
immediate orders to summons a hoy to carry me 
that evening to Dartmouth, without considering 
any consequence. Those orders I gave in no 
very low voice, so that those above stairs might 
possibly conceive there was more than one mas-^ 
ter in the cabin. In the same tone I likewise 
threatened the captain with that which, he after- 
wards said, he feared more than any rock or 
quicksand. Nor can we wonder at this when we 
are told he had been twice obliged to bring to 
and cast anchor there before, and had neither 
time escaped without the loss of almost his whole 
cargo. 

The most distant sound of law thus frightened 
a man^ who had often, I am convinced, heard 



Appendix IV 297 

numbers of cannon roar round him with intre- 
pidity. Nor did he sooner see the hoy approach- 
ing the vessel than he ran down again into the 
cabin, and, his rage being perfectly subsided, he 
tumbled on his knees, and a little too abjectly im- 
plored for mercy. 

I did not suffer a brave man and an old man to 
remain a moment in this posture, but I imme- 
diately forgave him. 

And here, that I may not be thought the sly 
trumpeter of my own praises, I do utterly dis- 
claim all praise on the occasion. Neither did 
the greatness of my mind dictate, nor the force 
of my Christianity exact, this forgiveness. To 
speak truth, I forgave him for a motive which 
would make men much more forgiving if they 
were much wiser than they are ; because it was 
convenient for me so to do. 

Wednesddf. — This morning the captain dressed 
himself in scarlet in order to pay a visit to a 
Devonshire squire, to v/hom a captain of a ship 
is a guest of no ordinary consequence, as he is a 
stranger and a gentleman, who hath seen a great 
deal of the world in foreign parts, and knows all 
the news of the times. 

The squire, therefore, was to send his boat for 
the captain, but a most unfortunate accident hap- 
pened, for, as the wind was extremely rough and 



298 Appendix IV 

against the hoy, while this was endeavouring to 
avail itself of great seamanship in hauling up 
against the wind, a sudden squall carried off sail 
and yard, or at least so disabled them that they 
were no longer of any use and unable to reach 
the ship ; but the captain, from the deck, saw his 
hopes of venison disappointed, and was forced 
either to stay on board his ship, or to hoist forth 
his own long-boat, which he could not prevail 
with himself to think of, though the smell of the 
venison had had twenty times its attraction. He 
did, indeed, love his ship as his wife, and his 
boats as children, and never willingly trusted the 
latter, poor things ! to the dangers of the seas. 

To say truth, notwithstanding the strict rigour 
with which he preserved the dignity of his sta- 
tion, and the hasty impatience with which he re- 
sented any affront to his person or orders, dis- 
obedience to which he could in no instance brook 
in any person on board, he was one of the best 
natur'd fellows alive. He acted the part of a 
father to his sailors ; he expressed great tender- 
ness for any of them when ill, and never suffered 
any, the least work of supererogation to go unre- 
warded by a glass of gin. He even extended 
his humanity, if I may so call it, to animals, and 
even his cats and kittens had large shares in his 
affections. An instance of which we saw this 



Appendix IV 299 

evening, when the cat, which had shown it could 
not be drowned, was found suffocated under a 
feather-bed in the cabin. I will not endeavour 
to describe his lamentations with more prolixity 
than barely by saying, they were grievous, and 
seemed to have some mixture of the Irish howl in 
them. Nay, he carried his fondness even to in- 
animate objects, of which we have above set 
down a pregnant example in his demonstration of 
love and tenderness towards his boats and ship. 
He spoke of a ship which he had commanded 
formerly, and which was long since no more, 
which he had called the Princess of Brazil, as a 
widower of a deceased wife. This ship, after 
having followed the honest business of carrying 
goods and passengers for hire many years, did at 
last take to evil courses and turn privateer, in 
which service, to use his own words, she received 
many dreadful wounds, which he himself had felt 
as if they had been his own. 

II. Mrs, Francis of Ryde, 
However, as there is scarce any difficulty to 
which the strength of men, assisted with the cun- 
ning of art, is not equal, I was at last hoisted 
into a small boat, and, being rowed pretty near 
the shore, was taken up by two sailors, who 
waded with me through the mud, and placed me 



300 Appendix IV 

in a chair on the land, whence they afterwards 
conveyed me a quarter of a mile farther, and 
brought me to a house which seemed to bid the 
fairest for hospitality of any in Ryde. 

We brought with us our provisions from the 
ship, so that we wanted nothing but a fire to 
dress our dinner, and a room in which we might 
eat it. In neither of these had we any reason to 
apprehend a disappointment, our dinner consist- 
ing only of beans and bacon, and the worst apart- 
ment in his Majesty's dominions, either at home 
or abroad, being fully sufficient to answer our 
present ideas of delicacy. 

Unluckily, however, we were disappointed in 
both ; for when we arrived about four at our inn, 
exulting in the hopes of immediately seeing our 
beans smoking on the table^ we had the mortifi- 
cation of seeing them on the table indeed, but 
without that circumstance which would have 
made the sight agreeable, being in the same state 
in which we had despatched them from our ship. 

In excuse for this delay, though we had ex- 
ceeded, almost purposely, the time appointed, 
and our provision had arrived three hours before, 
the mistress of the house acquainted us, that it 
was not for want of time to dress them that 
they were not ready, but for fear of their being 
cold or over-done before we should come ; which 



Appendix IV 301 

she assured us was much worse than waiting a 
few minutes for our dinner. An observation so 
very just, that it is impossible to find any objec- 
tion in it ; but indeed it was not altogether so 
proper at this time, for we had given the most abso- 
lute orders to have them ready at four, and had been 
ourselves, not without much care and difficulty, 
most exactly punctual in keeping to the very 
minute of our appointment. But tradesmen, inn- 
keepers, and servants never care to indulge us in 
matters contrary to our true interest, which they 
always know better than ourselves ; nor can any 
bribes corrupt them to go out of their way, 
whilst they are consulting our good in our own 
despite. 

Our disappointment in the other particular, in 
defiance of our humility, as it was more extra- 
ordinary, was more provoking. In short, Mrs. 
Francis (for that was the name of the good 
woman of the house) no sooner received the 
news of our intended arrival, than she considered 
m.ore the gentility than the humanity of her 
guests, and applied herself not to that which 
kindles, but to that which extinguishes fires, and, 
forgetting to put on her pot, fell to washing her 
house. 

As the messenger who had brought my venison 
was impatient to be despatched, I ordered it to 



302 Appendix IV 

be brought and laid on the table, in the room 
where I was seated ; and the table not being 
large enough, one side, and that a very bloody 
one, was laid on the brick floor. I then ordered 
Mrs. Francis to be called in, in order to give her 
instructions concerning it ; in particular^ what I 
would have roasted, and what baked, concluding 
that she would be highly pleased with the pros- 
pect of so much money being spent in her house, 
as she might have now reason to expect, if the 
wind continued only a few days longer to blow 
from the same points whence it had blown for 
several weeks past. 

I soon saw good cause, I must confess, to 
despise my own sagacity. Mrs. Francis, having 
received her orders, without making any answer, 
snatched the side from the floor, which remained 
stained with blood, and, bidding a servant to take 
up that on the table, left the room with no pleas- 
ant countenance, muttering to herself that, **had 
she known the litter which was to have been 
made, she would not have taken such pains to 
wash her house that morning. If this was 
gentility, much good may it do such gentlefolks ; 
for her part, she had no notion of it." 

From these murmurs, I received two hints. 
The one, that it was not from a mistake of our 
inclination that the good woman had starved us, 



Appendix IV 303 

but from wisely consulting her own dignity, or 
rather, perhaps, her vanity, to which our hunger 
was offered up as a sacrifice. The other, that I 
was now sitting in a damp room ; a circumstance, 
though it had hitherto escaped my notice, from 
the colour of the bricks, which was by no means 
to be neglected in a valetudinary state. 

My wife, who, besides discharging excellently 
well her own and all the tender offices becoming 
the female character ; who, besides being a faith- 
ful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender 
nurse, could likewise supply the wants of a 
decrepit husband, and occasionally perform his 
part, had, before this, discovered the immoderate 
attention to neatness in Mrs. Francis, and pro- 
vided against its ill consequences. She had 
found, though, not under the same roof, a very 
snug apartment belonging to Mr. Francis, and 
which had escaped the mop by his wife's being sat- 
isfied it could not possibly be visited by gentlefolks. 

This was a dry, warm, oaken-floored barn, 
lined on both sides with wheaten straw, and 
opening at one end into a green field, and a beau- 
tiful prospect. Here, without hesitation, she 
ordered the cloth to be laid, and came hastily to 
snatch me from worse perils by water than the 
common dangers of the sea. 

Mrs. Francis, who could not trust her own 



304 Appendix IV 

ears, or could not believe a footman in so extra- 
ordinary a phenomenon, followed my wife, and 
asked her if she had indeed ordered the cloth to 
be laid in the barn ; she answered in the affirma- 
tive ; upon which Mrs. Francis declared she 
would not dispute her pleasure, but it vv^as the 
first time, she believed, that quality had ever pre- 
ferred a barn to a house. She showed at the 
same time the most pregnant marks of contempt, 
and again lamented the labour she had under- 
gone through her ignorance of the absurd taste 
of her guests. 

At length Vv^e were seated in one of the most 
pleasant spots I believe in the kingdom, and 
were regaled with our beans and bacon, in which 
there was nothing deficient but the quantity. 
This defect was, however, so deplorable that we 
had consumed our whole dish before we had 
visibly lessened our hunger. We now waited 
with impatience the arrival of our second course, 
which necessity and not luxury had dictated. 
This was a joint of mutton, which Mrs. Francis 
had been ordered to provide ; but when, being 
tired with expectation, we ordered our servants 
io see for something else, we were informed that 
there was nothing else ; on which Mrs. Francis, 
being summoned, declared there were no such 
thing as m.utton to be had at Ryde. When I ex- 



Appendix IV 305 

pressed some astonishment at their having no 
butcher in a village so situated, she answered they 
had a very good one^ and one that killed all sorts 
of meat in season, beef two or three times a year, 
and mutton the whole year round ; but that, it be- 
ing then beans and peas time, he killed no meat, 
by reason he was not sure of selling it. This 
she had not thought worthy of communication, 
any more than that there lived a fisherman at next 
door, who was then provided with plenty of soals, 
and whitings, and lobsters, far superior to those 
which adorn a city feast. This discovery being 
made by accident, we completed the best, the 
pleasantest, and the merriest meal, with more ap- 
petite, more real, solid luxury, and more festivity, 
than was ever seen in an entertainment at White's. 
It may be wondered at, perhaps, that Mrs. 
Francis should be so negligent of providing for 
her guests, as she may seem to be thus inattentive 
to her own interest : but this was not the case ; 
for, having clapped a poll-tax on our heads at our 
arrival, and determined at what price to discharge 
our bodies from her house, the less she suffered 
any other to share in the levy, the clearer it came 
into her own pocket ; and that it was better to 
get twelve pence in a shilling than ten pence, 
which latter would be the case if she afforded us 
fish at any rate. 



3o6 Appendix IV 

Thus we past a most agreeable day owing to 
good appetites and good humour ; two hearty 
feeders which will devour with satisfaction what- 
ever food you place before them : whereas, with- 
out these, the elegance of St. James's, the chard, 
the perigord-pie, or the ortolan, the vension, the 
turtle, or the custard, may titillate the throat, but 
will never convey happiness to the heart or cheer- 
fulness to the countenance. 



Index 



Addison, Joseph, 25, 139, 
176, 213. 

"Advice to the Nymphs of 
NewS — -m" (1730), 54. 

Aitken, George A., 291, 292. 

Allen, Ralph, of Prior Park, 
33, 163, 164, 165, 207 n., 
209, 259, 269, 279, 289, 
291, 292. 

"Amelia," 25, 105, 147, 
207; published Dec, 175 1, 
209 ; advertising expedi- 
ents, 210; compared with 
"Tom Jones," 211-213; 
its characteristics and 
heroine, 214-227; her 
portrait, 217-219, 227, 
234, 240, 262, 265. 

Andrew, Sarah, 9, 10, 277- 
285. 

"Apology for the Clergy, 
An," 88. 

Arne, Dr. Thomas Augus- 
tine, 8. 

AthencBUftiy 255 ; letter to, 
reprinted, 277, 278 ; Field- 
ing's undated will, 291, 
292. 

" Author's Farce," The, pro- 
duced March, 1730, 20; 
characters, 21; quoted. 



22, 23, 24; revised, 1734, 
43; quoted, 44-46, 54, 

95. 214. 

Bedford, John, Duke of, 

163-165, 204, 288. 
Booth, Barton, 14, 41, 47. 
Borrow, George, quoted, 

255. 
Bronte, Charlotte, 88 n. 

Centilivre, Mrs., 31. 

Champion, The, 20; first 
number, Nov. 15, 1793, 
84; its scheme, 85, 86; 
themes, 87 ; contributions, 
88-90 ; attacks on Gibber, 
91-93; concluding paper, 

96, 97, 113, 125, 137, 
141, 145, 226, 258, 263. 

" Charge to the Grand Jury " 
(1749), 203, 205. 

Clarke, Mrs. Charlotte, Col- 
ley Gibber's daughter, 65, 

693 7i» 95- 
Gibber, Golley, 14, 15, 23, 

41, 46, 47, 62, 87, 89, 90, 
94, 95, 108, 126, 127. 

Gibber, Theophilus, 32, 41, 

42, 43,46,49,70, 71,74, 
95- 



3o8 



index 



«* Clear State of the Case 
of Elizabeth Canning " 
(1753), 229-232. 

Clive, Mrs. (Miss Raftor), 
26, 32, 41, 42, 43, 49, 70, 
123, I33» 257, 290. 

«* Coffee House Politician, 
The ; or, The Justice 
caught in his own Trap " 
(1730), 25, 213, 240. 

Coleridge, quoted, 173, 182, 

,183. 

Coveni-Gardenjournaly 220 ; 
first number, Jan. 4, 1752, 
223 ; quality of Fielding's 
contributions, 225, 226, 
234, 271. 

« Covent-Garden Tragedy " 
(1732), 26, 31, 126, 268. 

Cradock, Charlotte, Field- 
ing's first wife, 52, 54, 57, 
283. 

Daniel, Mary (Fielding's 

second wife), 157, 158, 

247. 
" David Simple," preface to, 

152, 153, 204. 
Davidson, James, quoted, 

282-4. 
" Debauchees, The ; or, the 

Jesuit Caught" (1732), 

26. 
" Deborah ; or, A Wife for 

you all" (acted in 1733, 

never printed), 41. 
" Description of U n 

G (alias * New Hog's 

Norton ') in Com. Hants " 

(1728), 19. 
Dickens, 108. 



" Don Quixote in England " 
(1734), II; expanded 
and strengthened, 46-49, 
62, 262. 

Dryden, 28. 

Edwards, Thomas, quoted, 
243-4 n. 

" Enquiry into the Causes of 
the late Increase of Rob- 
bers, etc., with some Pro- 
posals for remedying this 
growing Evil" (1751), 
205-7, 263, 290. 

" Essay on Conversation " 
(1740), 113. 

"Eurydice" (i737). 77. 
136. 

"Eurydice Hiss'd ; or, a 
Word to the Wise" 
(1737), 77»78, 81. 

" Examples of the Interposi- 
tion of Providence, in the 
Detection and Punish- 
ment of Murder" (1752), 
228. 

Fielding, Anne (Fielding's 
sister), 5. 

Fielding, Allen (Fielding's 
son), 268, 269, 292. 

Fielding, Charlotte Cradock 
(Fielding's first wife), 83, 
146, 147, 151, 152. 

Fielding, Edmund (Field- 
ing's father), 3, 82. 

Fielding, Edmund (Field- 
ing's brother), 5. 

Fielding, Eleanor Harriet 
(Fielding's daughter), 15 1, 
268, 291, 292. 



Index 



309 



Fielding, Henry, his an- 
cestry, 1-3; birth, 3; 
parents, 4 ; removal to 
East Stour, 4; mother's 
death, 5 ; first teacher, 
Mr. Oliver, 6 ; life at 
Eton, 6-9; school-fellows 
of note, 8 ; contemporaries, 
8; earhest recorded love- 
affair, 9-I1; one of his 
earliest literary efforts, 
1 1 ; return from Leyden 
University to London, 12; 
his father's second mar- 
riage, 12 ; choice of a pro- 
fession, 12; portrait by 
Hogarth, 12; first dra- 
matic essay, " Love in 
Several Masques," 14 ; its 
favorable reception, 17; 
the " Masquerade," a 
poem, 19; "A Descrip- 
tion of U n G 

(alias *New Hog's Nor- 
ton') in Com. Hants," 19; 
"To Euthalia," 19; be- 
ginning of his real con- 
nection with the stage, 
19; the "Temple Beau," 
20 ; " The Author's Farce " 
and " The Pleasures of the 
Town," 20-24 ; rapid 
production of comedies 
and farces, 24; the 
" Coffee House Politician," 
25 ; " Letter Writers," 25 ; 
" Grub Street Opera," 26; 
" Lottery," 26 ; " Modern 
Husband," 26 ; " Covent- 
Garden Tragedy," 26 ; 
" Debauchees," 26; " Tom 



Thumb," 27-31 ; the 
" Mock-Doctor," an adap- 
tation of Moliere's " Medi- 
cin malgrehii,^^ 31 ; 
further levies upon 
Moliere, 32; version of 
^^ VAvare,' 32; the 
" Miser," 33 ; financial 
straits, 33-36; character- 
istics at 25, 34; effect of 
his mode of living upon 
his work, 35 ; rapidity and 
carelessness of production, 
36; burlesqued in "Au- 
thor's Will," 36, 37; 
identity confused with that 
of Timothy Fielding, 38- 
41 ; " Deborah," 41 ; the 
" Intriguing Chamber- 
maid," 41-46; revised 
version of the " Author's 
Farce," 41-46; "Don 
Quixote in England," 46- 
49 ; " An Old Man taught 
Wisdom," 49; "The Uni- 
versal Gallant," 45-51 ; 
first marriage, 5 1 ; love- 
poems, 53-56; life at 
East Stour, 57 ; the 
" Great Tvlogul's Company 
of Comedians," 62; 
" Pasquin," 62-70 ; " Fatal 
Curiosity," 70 ; " Histori- 
cal Register," 70-72; 
effect of the Licensing 
Act, 72-76; playwright 
career closed, 76 ; " Miss 
Lucy in Town," 77 ; 
" Wedding Day," 77 ; 
" Good Natured Man," 
77; "Tumble-Down 



3TO 



Index 



Dick," 77; "Eurydice," 
77 ; " Eurydice Hiss'd," 
77, 78; admission to the 
Middle Temple, 82 ; 
ways as a Templar, 82, 
83 ; literary work, 84 ; 
** True Greatness," 84 ; 
connection with the 
Chauipion^ 84, 85, 87-90 ; 
attacked in Gibber's 
« Apology," 90, 91 ; reply 
thereto, 91 ; animosity to 
Gibber, 94, 95 ; call to the 
bar, 96 ; " Of True Great- 
ness," 97 ; " Vernoniad," 
97 ; " The Opposition, a 
Vision," 98 ; the " Crisis," 
98 ; devotion to his profes- 
sion, 99; "Joseph An- 
drews," 100, 104-120; 
effect of Richardson's 
" Pamela," 103 ; assign- 
ment of " Joseph An- 
drews" to Andrew Mil- 
lar, 119; "Vindication of 
the Duchess of Marl- 
borough," 121, 1 22; "Miss 
Lucy in Town," 123, 124; 
translation of " Plutus, the 
God of Riches," 124, 125; 
relations with Pope, 125, 
126; "The Wedding 
Day " and Garrick, 128- 
131 ; three volumes of 
" Miscellanies," 132, 133; 
essays " On Conversation," 
" On the Knowledge of 
the Character of Men," 
" On Nothing," etc., 
134-136; "A Journey 
from this World to the 



Next," 136-I41; "Jona- 
than Wild," 141-145; 
domestic history and death 
of first wife, 145-150; 
children by his first wife, 
151; Preface to "David 
Simple," 152, 153; Pref- 
ace to " Familiar Letters," 
153; the True Patriot ^ 
154; the Jacobite's Jour- 
naly 154, 155; second 
marriage, 156, 157 ; Justice 
of the Peace for West- 
minster and Middlesex, 
159; "Tom Jones," 162- 
166, 172-199; a ."new 
Province of Writing " fore- 
seen, 168 ; " a humiliating 
anecdote," 200, 201; 
chairman of Quarter Ses- 
sions, 203 ; charge to the 
Westminster Grand Jury, 
203, 204 ; serious illness, 
205 ; " An Enquiry into 
the Causes of the late In- 
crease of Robbers, etc.," 
205,206; connection with 
the Glastonbury waters, 
208, 209 ; " Amelia," 209- 
218; the author's apology 
for the book, 220-222 ; the 
Covent- Garden Journal^ 
223-227 ; " Examples of 
the Interposition of Provi- 
dence," 228 ; " Proposal 
for making an Effectual 
Provision for the Poor," 
229 ; the " Clear State of 
the Case of Elizabeth 
Canning," 229-232 ; the 
beginning of the end, 233, 



Index 



3" 



234 ; poor law projects, 
234-236; "Journal of a 
Voyage to Lisbon," 236, 
237 ; scheme for the pre- 
vention of murders and 
robberies, 238, 239 ; fail- 
ing health, 239-241 ; de- 
parture for Lisbon, 243; 
incidents of the journey, 
245-249; letter to John 
Fielding, 249, 250; ar- 
rival at Lisbon, 253; 
death and burial, 253, 
254 ; tomb and epitaph, 
254» 255; portrait, 255- 
258; bust, 258 n. ; char- 
acter, 259-262; work, 
262-266 ; family, 267- 
272; posthumous works, 
273-275 ; library, 275, 
276; romantic attachment 
for Sarah Andrews, 279- 
285 ; Mrs. Hussey's testi- 
mony, 286-290; his will, 
291, 292; incidents of the 
voyage to Lisbon, 293- 
306. 

Fielding, John (Fielding's 
half-brother, afterward Sir 
John), 202, 241, 249, 
269, 270, 271, 292. 

Fielding, John, Canon of 
Salisbury (Fielding's 
grandfather), 3. 

Fieldmg, Louisa (Fielding's 
daughter), 268. 

Fielding, Mary Amelia 
(Fielding's daughter), 268. 

Fielding, Mary Daniel 
(Fielding's second wife), 
157, 246, 269, 291. 



Fielding, Sarah (Fielding's 
sister, author of " David 
Simple"), 5, 50, 270. 

Fielding, Sarah Gould 
(Fielding's mother), 3, 5. 

Fielding, Sophia (Fielding's 
daughter), 268, 269, 291, 
292. 

Fielding, Timothy, a third- 
rate actor, 38, 39, 40. 

Fielding, William (Field- 
ing's son), 158, 268, 269, 
292. 

Fox, Henry, Lord Holland, 
8, 133. 

Garrick, David, 15, 97; 
Garrick and "The Wed- 
ding Day," 128-131; 133, 
275, 289. 

Geneste, , 20, 32, 38, 

47. 

Gentleman's Magazine, 100, 
158, 175, 188, 229, 233. 

George Eliot, quoted, 168. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 107. 

" Good-Natured Man, The 
Fathers; or. The" (1779), 
77, 128; story of its loss 
and recovery, 273-275. 

Gould, Judge Henry (Field- 
ing's cousin), 99. 

Gould, Sir Henry, Knt. 
(Fielding's grandfather), 

3»4. 
Gray, Thomas, 9, 118, 119, 

" Grub Street Opera " 
(1731). 26. 

Henley, John, the Clare- 
Marker Orator, 20. 



312 



Index 



Hill, Aaron, 189, 194. 

Hill, the Misses, 190-192, 
194. 

Hill, Dr. John, 223. 

" Historical Register for the 
Year 1736" (1737), 70, 
7i» 73, 75» 76, 81, 262. 

Hogarth, William, 12, 31, 
32, 48, 69; Fielding's 
testimony to his merits, 
89, 90 n., 100, 102, III, 
112, 113, 155, 197, 206, 
217, 241 n., 254, 255, 
256, 257, 265, 2S9. 

Hooke, Nathaniel, 121, 122, 
289. 

Hunter, William, 246. 

Hurd, Rev. R., Bishop of 
Worcester, quoted, 207 n. 

Hussey, Mrs., 286-288. 

" Intriguing Chamber- 
maid," The (1734), 4i» 
43. 46. 

Jacobite's Journal (1747), 
154; extract, 155, 159, 
162, 165, 189, 204, 223, 
260. 

Johnson, Samuel, 20, 121, 
133, 185, 188, 219. 

"Jonathan Wild the Great, 
History of the Life of the 
late Mr.," description, 
141-145, 262, 264. 

" Joseph Andrews, The 
History of the Adventures 
of, and of his Friend Mr. 
Abraham Adams " (1742), 
6, 89, 94; personages, 
104-109; details and de- 



scriptions, 109-I11; per- 
sonal portraiture, 1 1 1- 
114, 114-116; Richard- 
son and the author, 116— 
119; assignment to Mil- 
lar, 119, 120, 126, 132, 
136, 145, 148, 161, 162, 
165, 166, 167, 176, 180, 
213, 252, 264. 
" Journey from this World to 
the Next,"_ A, 34, 54; 
plan description and ex- 
tracts, 136-141, 151, 289. 

Keightley, Thomas (Field- 
ing's biographer), 4, 6, 
19, 52, 58, 59» 82, 84, 
107, 144 n., 146, 150, 
175, 201, 213, 268, 279, 
280, 281, 282, 284, 285. 

Lang, Andrew, quoted, 
168 n. 

Latreille, Frederick, sub- 
stance of article in Notes 
a7id Queries, 39-41. 

Lawrence, Frederick (Field- 
ing's biographer), 32, '^^'^^ 
92, 94, 96, 107, 124, 131, 
158, 201, 209, 225, 272; 
quoted, 277, 278, 280, 
284. 

^' VAvare'' (1733), a ver- 
sion of, 32. 

" Letter Writers, The ; or, 
A New Way to Keep a 
Wife at Home" (1731), 

25- 
" Life and Death of Com- 
mon-Sense " (See " Pas- 



Index 



313 



quin "), description and 

extracts, 65-69. 
London Daily Advertiser^ 

208, 224. 
" Love in Several Masques " 

(1728), 15, 17, 18, 23, 

24. 
Lowell, James Russell, 

quoted, 258 n. 
Lyttleton, George, 8, 33, 94, 

158, 163, 164, 165, 170, 

201, 204, 224 n., 259, 

272, 289. 

Macaulay, Thomas Bab- 
bington, 262. 

"Masquerade,'* the (1728), 
18. 

Millar, Andrew, 119, 133, 
166, 167, 187, 209, 210, 
219, 261. 

"Miscellanies" (1743), u, 
19, 84, 9M9» 122, 124, 
129, 131, 132, 136, 141, 
142, 145, 146, 152, 153, 
236. 

"Miser," the (1733), 38, 
41. 

" Miss Lucy in Town " 
(1742), 77, 79, 122, 123, 
127. 

" Mock-Doctor, The ; or The 
Dumb Lady cur'd " 
(1732), 31, 128. 

"Modern Husband," The 
(1732), 26, 31, 213. 

Montagu, Lady Mary Wort- 
ley (Fielding's second 
cousin), 3, 18, 24,26, 36; 
quoted, 60, 126, 147, 
148, 181, 196, 215, 259. 



Murphy, Arthur, 5, 7, 11, 
i3» 33» 57» 59» 78-80, 82, 
84, 113, 146, I47» 202, 
216, 226 n., 236, 256, 
257, 258 n., 259, 273, 
274. 

Odell, Thomas, 19. 

" Of Good-nature," 134. 

" Of the Remedy of Afflic- 
tion for the Loss of our 
Friends," 136, 146. 

" Of True Greatness " 

(1741), 84, 97» 134. 
Oldfield, Mrs. Anne, 14, 17, 

18. 
"Old Man taught Wisdom, 

An" (1735), 49. 
Oliver, Mr. (Fielding's first 

tutor), 6, 113. 
"On Conversation," 134. 
"On Nothing," 134. 
" On the Choice of a Wife," 

134. 
"On the Knowlege of the 
Character of Men," 34, 

135- 
" Opposition, The, a Vision " 

(1739), 98. 

" Pasquin, a Dramatic 
Satire on the Times: be- 
ing the rehearsal of two 
Plays, viz, a Comedy 
call'd the Election, and a 
Tragedy call'd the Life 
and Death of Common- 
Sense " (1736), 16, 51; 
plot, incidents and ex- 
tracts, 62-70, 72, 73, 75, 
76,77, 88,95, 126,262. 



3M 



Index 



Pelham, Sir Henry, 229, 
242. 

Pitt, William, Earl of Chat- 
ham, 8, 133, 163. 

Planche, Gustave, quoted, 
211. 

" Pleasures of the Town, 
The" (1730), 20. 

Pope, Alexander, 95, 96, 
97, loi, 113, 125, 126, 

127, 133. 

Pratt, Charles, Earl Cam- 
den, 8, 99. 

FrofHpiery the, quoted, 50. 

" Proposal for Making an 
Effectual Provision for the 
Poor" (1753), 229. 

Raftor, Miss, see Mrs. 
Clive. 

Ralph, James (Fielding's 
colleague on the Cha??i- 
pion), 20, 85, 89, 97, 127. 

Richardson, John, 14, 42, 

69, 77. 

Richardson, Samuel, li, 
52; his "Pamela," loi- 
112, 117, 133, 147, 155, 
188, 189, 190, 192, 195, 
196, 219, 222, 243 n., 264, 
274. 

Roberts, George, Mayor of 
Lyme, 9 ; quoted, 278, 
281, 282, 284. 

Saintsbury, Prof., quoted, 
261, n. 

Scriblerus Secundus (Field- 
ing's pseudonym), 20, 25,' 
27. 



Scott, Sir Walter, 202; 

quoted, 210, 225, 254. 
Sheridan, Thomas, the actor, 

108. 
Sheridan, Richard, B. B., 

275- 
Smith, J. T., quoted, 286- 

288. 
Smollett, Tobias George, I, 

40 ; quoted, 159, 224, 

252, 259. 
Southey, Robert, quoted, 

268. 
Steele, Sir Richard, 139, 

140. 
Stephen, Leslie, quoted, 260. 
Sterne, Laurence, 107. 
Stuart, Lady Louisa, 53, 

148, 150; quoted, 156, 

158, 202. 
Swift, Jonathan, 30, 56. 

"Temple Beau," The 
(1730), 19, 20, 85. 

Thackeray, William Make- 
peace, 83. 

"To Celia," 55, 56. 

"To Euthalia" (1728), 19. 

Thomas, Margaret, 258 n. 

"Tom Jones, a Foundling, 
The History of" (1749), 
6, 7, 10, 52, 80, 105, III, 
145, 162, 164, 165, 166; 
construction of the plot, 
169-175 ; the characters, 
176-183; the author's 
humour, irony, humanity, 
184-188; its reception, 
188; Richardson's atti- 
tude, 189, 192-196; Aa- 
ron Hill's daughters and 



Index 



315 



the book, 190-192; trans- 
lators and illustrators, 196, 
197 ; adaptations for the 
stage, 197-199, 206, 211, 
212, 213, 217, 226, 233, 
241 n., 264, 265, 278, 
279, 288, 290. 

Thomas, Nat. Lee, 27. 

" Tragedy of Tragedies ; or, 
the Life and Death of 
Tom Thumb the Great '* 
(1730), description and ex- 
tracts, 27-31, 126, 262. 

"Tumble-Down Dick;* or, 
Phaeton in the Suds " 

(I737)»77- 
True Patriot (1745), 15 1, 

152, 154, 156, 162, 165, 

263. 
"True State of the Case of 

Bosavern Penlez, A " 

(1749), 204. 

" Universal Gallant, The ; 
or. The different Hus- 
bands" (i735)» 49, 5^ 
58, 59. 

Veal, Captain Richard, 252. 

"Vernoniad" (1741), 97, 
100. 

" Vindication of the Duch- 
ess of Marlborough '* 
(1742), 121, 122. 

" Virgin Unmasked," 49, 
123. 



*< Voyage to Lisbon, Journal 
of a" (1755), 151, 158, 
228, 236, 237, 241 ; quot- 
ed, 244, 245, 247, 249, 
252, 253, 257, 261, 273, 
275, 281 ; extracts, 293- 
306. 

Walpole, Horace, 9, 123, 
127, 133, 163; quoted, 
167, 200, 201, 203, 207, 
247, 259, 272, 274. 

Walpole, Sir Robert, 34, 7 1, 
126, 144 n. 

Walter, Peter, 113. 

Ward, Dr. Joshua, 241. 

Warton, Joseph, quoted, 
161, 162. 

" Wedding Day," the (1743), 
77, 128, 132, 136. 

Welch, Saunders, 245, 246, 
251, 271. 

Wilks, Robert, 14, 15, 23, 

27» 41, 43. 

Williams, Sir Charles Han- 
bury, 8, 133, 274. 

Winnington, Thomas, 8, 
i33» 205. 

Woffington, Mrs., 1 1, 133. 

Wraxall, Sir Nathaniel, 254. 

YoRKE, Philip, Lord Hard- 

wicke, 205, 290. 
Young, Edward, 28, 133. 
Young, Rev. William, 1 1 2, 

120, 124, 125, 226. 



